Oral Answers to Questions

WALES

The Secretary of State was asked—

Cardiff's Women's Safety Unit

Jennifer Willott: What discussions he has had with National Assembly for Wales colleagues on future funding of Cardiff's women's safety unit; and if he will make a statement.

Huw Irranca-Davies: The Cardiff women's safety unit does a fantastic job in helping the victims of the abhorrent crimes of domestic violence. The Assembly Government and the UK Government are committed unreservedly to protecting vulnerable women and prosecuting violent partners.

Jennifer Willott: Every year the Cardiff women's safety unit supports about 1,500 domestic violence cases. I know that the Minister is aware of its excellent work, but is he aware that the unit is facing funding shortages in the short term, as some charitable funds are coming to an end, and in the long term, with funding for the Cardiff community safety partnership being cut by 14 per cent.? Will he speak to the Home Office to ensure that the unit is able to maintain the good work that it does well into the future?

Huw Irranca-Davies: As mentioned by the hon. Lady in whose constituency the unit is located, I visited the unit recently with my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, North (Julie Morgan) and saw at first hand the very good work that it does. The unit is a model of good practice and provides an invaluable service. This year it received £247,298 core funding from the Assembly Government, which is secure for 2008-09. That is an increase on the original three-year allocation approved in March 2006. In addition, for 2007-08 the Assembly has awarded £63,442 to fund the male helpline, which operates from the unit, and that is an increase as well. The Assembly is considering its budget plans for future years, but I applaud the work that the unit does and the secure funding that is in place.

Julie Morgan: Is my hon. Friend aware of the pioneering success of the women's safety units in halving the number of repeat offences of domestic abuse? That has been achieved about by their pioneering system of holding multi-agency conferences on all cases of high-risk domestic abuse. Is my hon. Friend aware that this system has been copied in 70 areas of the UK, and that Wales has been leading the way in this regard?

Huw Irranca-Davies: Absolutely. It would right and proper to say that we recognise the work of my hon. Friend in taking the initiative forward from its instigation. Yes, the multi-agency risk conferences are not only innovative but are proving their effectiveness. We hope to see more and more of them across the UK. It is worth pointing out the Government's commitment to specialist domestic violence courts, of which there are eight in Wales and more to come in the UK. That shows how serious the Government are, both at UK level and in the Welsh Assembly Government.

David Davies: Does the Minister agree that the women's safety unit and other groups like it should do more to prioritise preventing the abhorrent practice of female genital mutilation? Is he aware that since the law against that was passed in 2003, not a single person has been convicted, and that in Wales there is a danger that thousands of women could face that disgraceful and awful practice?

Huw Irranca-Davies: The hon. Gentleman has raised an important issue, but I am sure he is aware that one of the significant feature of the women's safety unit is the way in which it brings together various agencies and actors from different women's and male groups in the Cardiff and south Wales areas. They no doubt share the concerns that he expressed, but the core work that the women's safety unit does in tackling domestic abuse and violence against partners, both male and female, is to be firmly applauded.

Cross-border Rail Links

Ian Lucas: What steps he has taken to assist in the improvement of cross-border rail links in north Wales.

Huw Irranca-Davies: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I, like my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas), take a keen interest in Welsh rail services. This includes regular discussions with ministerial colleagues both in Whitehall and the Assembly Government, as well as with train operating companies and other stakeholders.

Ian Lucas: In Wrexham we are celebrating the introduction of the first direct rail service to London since 1957, which was announced last month, but we are ever ambitious and we now want the electrification of the Wrexham-Liverpool line. We note with some concern that the rail assessment plan that was issued over the summer somehow made the mistake—I am sure it was a mistake—of putting back the work on that till 2014. Will my hon. Friend have discussions as soon as possible with the First Minister to make sure that the error is rectified?

Huw Irranca-Davies: My hon. Friend has been a tireless campaigner on behalf of his constituents and north Wales rail. We welcome the new direct service between Wrexham and Marylebone. In respect of the Wrexham to Bidston electrification, the co-operation between Merseytravel and the Welsh Assembly Government to examine the feasibility of improving the line is welcome because it could indeed deliver improved rail links, leading to economic and employment opportunities. I understand that the Welsh Assembly Government are considering the options resulting from the feasibility study. Decisions on the way forward will be for them, but as my hon. Friend has been such a strong advocate of rail issues in his constituency and across the region, I am more than happy to meet him and discuss the matter further.

Elfyn Llwyd: The Minister will be aware of the recent announcement by the Welsh Assembly Government that it is a priority to improve rail journey times between north and south Wales and to introduce electrification. Will the Minister do what he can to assist Ministers in Cardiff to implement that approach, bearing in mind the huge economic, social and other benefits?

Huw Irranca-Davies: The hon. Gentleman has raised an important issue. On 2 October, the Welsh Assembly Government announced new transport priorities, which include a commitment to examine further improvements to north-south rail travel, including a new fast service with business-class facilities operating southbound in the morning and northbound in the evening. On 3 October, the Welsh Assembly Government launched their freight strategy consultation, which aims to deliver a robust, modern and efficient freight transport system. I will take the hon. Gentleman's views on board. The plans are exciting and ambitious, and we all hope that they can be delivered.

Madeleine Moon: While welcoming the news about the improvement of railway services in north Wales, may I ask my hon. Friend what impact the recently published rail White Paper will have on railways not only in north Wales but across Wales?

Huw Irranca-Davies: The recent rail White Paper will deliver real benefits for Wales. It discusses improved reliability on long-distance services—Virgin, First Great Western and Arriva cross country—increases in safety and an enhanced network capacity at Reading, which, as my hon. Friend will know from campaigning conducted by her and other MPs, is a pinchpoint on the First Great Western route. Most importantly, the White Paper mentions a 20 per cent. increase in capacity into Cardiff at peak times by 2014. We should applaud the rail White Paper and recognise that it is in no small way due to effective campaigning by Government Members.

David Jones: I want to return to the question raised by the hon. Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas)—the electrification of the Wrexham to Bidston line, which is extremely important to the economy of north-east Wales. We know that the Welsh Assembly Government were committed to that proposal before the Assembly elections, but now they appear to have shelved the scheme for up to 12 years. Does the Minister know the reason for that change of plan? Was it perhaps a concession extracted from the First Minister by his Plaid Cymru coalition partners to enable them to pursue policies that are likely to find favour in the areas where they are strongest?

Huw Irranca-Davies: As the hon. Gentleman knows, the decision is ultimately for the Welsh Assembly Government. However, I have heard what he has said, and we are keen to see the scheme proceed, too. The hon. Gentleman is challenging us on plans for the rail network, but in the past 10 years we have had to deal with the failures caused by the botched rail privatisation by the Tory Administration. Now, rather than offering robust policy alternatives, they are offering us a return to privatisation with threats to break up Network Rail—far from learning from past mistakes, they are condemned to repeat them.

Albert Owen: I welcome the additional services proposed by Virgin Trains on cross-border and mainline services. My hon. Friend will know that one of the problems in north-west Wales is the lack of synergy between mainline services, regional services and the ferry port of Holyhead in my constituency. Will my hon. Friend bring together train operators and ferry operators to ensure that we have joined-up thinking and a truly integrated service? And will he agree to meet me to discuss that case in more detail?

Huw Irranca-Davies: Yes, I am open to meeting my hon. Friend and other north Wales Members who are concerned about the matter. I will take up that offer to work constructively with my hon. Friend.

"One Wales" Document

David Evennett: What discussions he has had with the First Minister since the signing of the "One Wales" document on the impact of the implementation of that document on the governance of Wales.

Peter Hain: We have regular ones, as we work closely with the Welsh Assembly Government to deliver for the people of the Wales.

David Evennett: I thank the Secretary of State for his response. Is he aware that several aspects of the "One Wales" document, such as council tax relief for older people and consultation on hospital reconfiguration, originally appeared in the Welsh Conservatives manifesto? Will he guarantee that those proposals will be implemented?

Peter Hain: If they are sensible proposals, they will be a matter for the Welsh Assembly Government to implement.
	I assume that the hon. Gentleman agrees with the hon. Member for Monmouth (David T.C. Davies), sitting behind him, who said in  The Western Mail on 21 September:
	"Some Conservatives like myself, and all my fellow MPs, feel we were correct to oppose the establishment of the Assembly and should continue to oppose further powers"
	for the Welsh Assembly. I assume that the hon. Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Mr. Evennett) and Conservative Front Benchers agree with that, as the hon. Member for Monmouth was claiming ownership of all Conservative MPs.

Paul Flynn: Are not the Welsh Assembly Government to be congratulated on how they dealt with the recent farming difficulties—particularly the single farm payment and the recent health crises? They have been cautious, but practical and swift, in reducing the harm that was likely to be caused to the farmers. Can we now expect a hallelujah chorus of gratitude from the National Farmers Union to the "One Wales" Government?

Peter Hain: If there were to be such a chorus, it would be the first. However, I agree with my hon. Friend's comments on how the Welsh Assembly Government have handled the situation.

Roger Williams: Yesterday's spending review will have a devastating effect on the affordability of the programme set out in the "One Wales" document. It will also show how unfair the Barnett formula is for Wales. If the Assembly review of the formula recommends that it be scrapped, will the Secretary of State campaign for reform and be Wales's man in the Cabinet, or will he remain true to form and be Westminster's man in Wales?

Peter Hain: I will be both Wales's person in the Cabinet and Westminster's person in Wales, because that is my job. The hon. Gentleman has said something extraordinary. Spending, however we define it, has been increased by more than £2 billion compared with the past year, according to the pre-Budget statement yesterday. That is a massive injection: a 2.4 per cent. real-terms increase per year, and an increase over the period of 14.5 per cent. Some £2 billion extra is coming into the Welsh budget; the hon. Gentleman should be applauding that.

Cheryl Gillan: We are always interested in what the Secretary of State says in  The Western Mail. Given the Plaid Cymru-Labour coalition in the Assembly, how will the governance of Wales be helped by Plaid MPs calling the Chancellor's settlement for Wales the worst settlement since devolution and the Secretary of State boasting that Wales gets £1,000 more expenditure per head than England and calling Plaid "the enemy"?
	Does the Secretary of State agree that in addition to discussions with the First Minister, he needs to have urgent discussions with his coalition partners in this Chamber—or does the proposal and promise of "One Wales" not apply here in Westminster?

Peter Hain: For the hon. Lady's education, I should say that we have a Labour Government here. We do not have a coalition Government with anybody in Westminster, and I am pleased about that.
	On the Welsh Assembly Government's position on the Budget, Andrew Davies, the Welsh Assembly Finance Minister, said yesterday:
	"I am confident that we can meet the challenges ahead and deliver our ambitious  "One Wales" programme within the level of resources announced this afternoon."
	That compares with a black hole of £5.4 billion in the Tories' future public financing plans, which would result in savage cuts in the Welsh budget for public services. The hon. Lady should seek to explain that position, not to attack a £2 billion increase—a real-terms increase—in the Welsh budget over the next three years.

Animal Health Measures

Angela Watkinson: What discussions he has had with the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on the cross-border applications of emergency animal health measures.

Huw Irranca-Davies: The Secretary of State and I have regular discussions with the Secretary of State for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on a range of issues, including on animal health measures. The recent crises in animal health and our Government's reaction prove the seriousness with which we take such issues and that the procedures in place to deal with such sudden events are working well.

Angela Watkinson: The Minister will be only too well aware of the importance of livestock farming to the economy in Wales. He will also know that Wales is designated as a low-risk area for foot and mouth disease. However, what action would be taken if a case were confirmed in Wales?

Huw Irranca-Davies: The Welsh Assembly Government and DEFRA have worked closely on this matter and, as the hon. Lady is aware, many aspects of the powers on animal health measures are devolved to Wales. I applaud the way in which the Welsh Assembly Government have responded. If there were an action, measures are already in place to respond to it, but it is good to stand here and say that we do not fall within the protection zone or need to take such measures.
	On farmers, the Welsh Assembly Government are seeking European approval for a lamb welfare disposal scheme, which will be of assistance, and they are also on track to start payments under the single farm payments scheme, as soon as it opens in December.

Mark Williams: In view of what the Minister has just said will he ensure during his discussions with the Environment Secretary that the National Assembly is fully compensated for any system of compensation to Welsh livestock farmers? That should happen not least because the foot and mouth outbreak occurred in a UK laboratory—the basis being that the polluter must pay.

Huw Irranca-Davies: The hon. Gentleman will be aware that compensation is paid for the culling of livestock and in relation to machinery and equipment affected by disease. This case is different. As DEFRA has done in a different way throughout the rest of the UK, the Welsh Assembly has put in place measures of support for farmers. It is appropriate for DEFRA to do so in England, and for the Welsh Assembly Government to do so in Wales.

Cheryl Gillan: Last month, the Secretary of State for Wales incredibly boasted that the Government's handling of the foot and mouth outbreak had established their reputation for competence. Given that that assertion has been shot to pieces because the outbreak was caused by the Government's own incompetence, and that many Welsh farmers are facing financial ruin, will the Minister confirm categorically that farmers will be compensated by DEFRA to the full extent of the legal liability and that the costs will not fall on the Assembly budget? We need to know where the money is coming from for our Welsh farmers.

Huw Irranca-Davies: It may be helpful to clarify for the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman that, under the current devolution settlement, there are responsibilities for DEFRA and for the Welsh Assembly Government. I shall outline once again that the Welsh Assembly Government are putting support in place. That is not compensation, but it relates to support mechanisms, including light lambs and their disposal, and ensuring that the single farm payments are on track. That is different from what would have happened if there had been an outbreak in Wales, which currently, I am glad to say, we do not have.

Employment (Swansea)

Si�n James: What recent assessment he has made of employment levels in Swansea, East.

Peter Hain: Up to December 2006, there were over 34,000 people in employment in Swansea East, an increase of over 3,000 in two years.

Si�n James: I thank my right hon. Friend for his answer. I am sure that he is aware that one of the fastest growing sectors in Wales is that of information and communication technology. There has been an increase in jobs in that sector in Swansea, East, with companies such as nSure investing and benefiting from the excellent staff and opportunities in Swansea. Will my right hon. Friend assure me that there will be continued investment in this important sector and that we will drive up employment levels even higher?

Peter Hain: Yes, indeed. What nSure is doing is very good, and I notice that Swansea is leading the way with RAP International based at the Technium Swansea. Swansea university has a Technium digital base there, and there is a 3 million Boots centre for innovation, designed to assist global researchers and entrepreneurs. That is a good sign that Swansea is leading the way and becoming a city that will make a major impact in the ICT sector, which, as my hon. Friend says, is crucial to the strength of the Welsh economy.

Nia Griffith: As well as welcoming the increase in Welsh exports, which was published last week, would my right hon. Friend join me in recognising the importance of businesses such as Machynys golf club, which bring money into Wales and provide jobs in the Llanelli area?

Peter Hain: Yes, I do, and I visited the golf club with my hon. Friend. It is a good example of a world-class investment that shows that Llanelli and the whole region of south-west Wales is doing very well, compared with how it was more than 10 years ago, during the miserable experience it had under the Tories.

Economic Inactivity

Hywel Francis: What measures the Government are planning to tackle economic inactivity in Wales.

Peter Hain: The Government are planning a wide range of initiatives aiming to help those on benefits back into work in Wales, including city strategy pilots in Rhyl and the heads of the valleys, and extending pathways to work to all Wales by the end of this year.

Hywel Francis: The Secretary of State will know about the recent Bevan Foundation study, entitled Caring and Working? A Welsh Case Study, which addresses the barriers that carers face in returning to work. Does he agree that one of the best ways to help carers in Wales and elsewhere is to review the carer's allowance and significantly improve their respite care? Does he also agree that the Prime Minister's review of the national carer's strategy and his excellent initiative to establish a carer's commission present an ideal opportunity to assist carers and thus reduce economic inactivity in Wales?

Peter Hain: Yes, I do. I commend my hon. Friend for his pioneering work in support of carershe has done a fantastic job. The Carers (Equal Opportunities) Act 2004 took up much of that work. The Bevan Foundation publication on caring and working, which I have read, is very interesting and will inform our current debate on a national carer's strategy and our intention to publish a Green Paper once we have taken the work forward.

Lembit �pik: Wales has the capacity to become the capital of environmental industries for the United Kingdom and, indeed, Europe. Is the Secretary of State willing to meet a delegation representing environmental enterprises to discuss the potential of tackling economic inactivity throughout Wales at the same time as contributing to our sustainable agenda?

Peter Hain: I would be happy to meet such a delegation. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that environmental manufacturing and environmental businesses have a vital role in a strong, modern Welsh economy, which we are building in partnership with the Welsh Assembly Government.

John Smith: Does my right hon. Friend agree that economic inactivity in south Wales will be greatly reduced by the military training academy at St. Athan, especially if we get the transport infrastructure right? Is he satisfied with the progress that the Welsh Assembly Government are making on that infrastructure?

Peter Hain: My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary visited in the summer to look into the matter. The St. Athan project is a flagship project for Wales, which will bring in billions of pounds of investment and create thousands of jobs. That shows the value of the partnership between our Government here in London and the Welsh Assembly Government in Cardiff, with Wales as part of the United Kingdom, not taken out of it, as the nationalists propose, or forced to withdraw as a result of the disastrous proposals of the Leader of the Opposition to create first and second-class Members of Parliament.

Nick Ainger: My right hon. Friend will be aware of the transformation in economic success of my constituency. Ten years ago, it was an unemployment blackspot; now it has almost full employment. However, problems remain with economic inactivity. May I draw his attention to the work of the Prince's Trust and Pembrokeshire college, which are delivering upskilling for young people, 140 of whom are based at the Cleddau activity centre, which my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary visited in September?
	Wearing his other hat as Secretary of State for Work and Pensions

Mr. Speaker: Order. That will do.

Peter Hain: I agree with my hon. Friend that the Prince's Trust does fantastic work in Pembrokeshire and elsewhere in the country. I also agree that the transformation in the Pembrokeshire economy has been nothing short of miraculous, given the devastation that I remember seeing when I canvassed with him in the early 1990s. Now, more than 1,000 job vacancies have been advertised in his constituency alone. That shows the enormous growth in the economy in Pembrokeshire and Carmarthenshire and the fantastic potential for everybody there to do well, for people to get more jobs and to go from strength to strength.

Cancer Treatment

Michael Fabricant: What discussions he has had with Ministers in the National Assembly for Wales Government on the treatment of patients from England for cancer in Welsh hospitals.

Huw Irranca-Davies: I am in regular contact with all my ministerial colleagues in the Welsh Assembly Government. The Welsh Assembly Government are committed to providing a world-class health service that is available to everyone, irrespective of who they are or where they live.

Michael Fabricant: The Under-Secretary knows that the geography of Wales makes transport difficult. When, for example, cancer consultants are being withdrawn from Bronglais hospital in Aberystwyth and people in that part of mid Wales have to go to Caernarfon or even across to Shrewsbury for treatment, it causes genuine difficulty. Will he speak to members of the Welsh Assembly Government to ascertain whether the situation can be resolved?

Huw Irranca-Davies: As always, I am more than happy to take up individual issues that are raised. On the Welsh Assembly Government's commitment, the hon. Gentleman knows that, in 2007, 5.5 billion is being spent on health in Walesmore than 1,800 per person and more than double 1996-97 figures. Cancer services in Wales now receive 4.5 million extra. Record investment is showing record results.

PRIME MINISTER

The Prime Minister was asked

Engagements

Bob Neill: If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 10 October.

Gordon Brown: This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House, I shall have further such meetings later today.

Bob Neill: Will the Prime Minister join me in congratulating the Conservative-controlled London borough of Bromley on achieving the highest rate of dry recycling in London and on being recognised as an exemplary authority for garden and home recycling? Would he like to come and see the work that we are doing in Bromley? I could take him and show him one of our bottle banks.

Gordon Brown: The hon. Gentleman will therefore be very  [ Interruption. ]

Mr. Speaker: Order. Prime Minister.

Gordon Brown: The hon. Gentleman will therefore be very pleased with the public expenditure settlement yesterday, which gives huge amounts of money to the environment.

David Kidney: Will my right hon. Friend take a personal interest in helping to resolve the industrial dispute at Royal Mail? I am sure that, as the owner of the business, the Government share everybody's concern about the interruptions in the cash flow of small businesses, in the contacts between constituents and their MPs and in the daily lives of all residents, including those in rural communities. Given that both sides of the dispute say that they share the same interest [ Interruption. ]

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman has made his point.

Gordon Brown: This has to be settled by negotiations between the Post Office and the work force, but there is no justification for the continuation of the dispute. It should be brought to an end on the terms that have been offered as soon as possible. I urge the work force to go back to work.

David Cameron: The big question this week is: can we believe what the Prime Minister says? So let us start with his credibility gulf over the election. The Prime Minister was asked, Hand on heart, if the polls showed a 100-seat majority, would you still have called off the election? and he said yes. Does he expect anyone to believe that?

Gordon Brown: I will take no lectures from the Leader of the Opposition. This summer he was for grammar schools, against them and then for them again. He was for VAT on air fares and then against it. He was for parking charges and then against them. He was for museum charges and then against them. I will take no lectures from the Leader of the Opposition about that.

David Cameron: He is the first Prime Minister in history to flunk an election because he thought that he was going to win it. Does he remember writing this? It is in his best-selling book about courage:
	As far back as I can remember, I have been fascinated by men and women of courage. Stories of people who took brave decisions in the service of great causes...especially when more comfortable and far less dangerous alternatives were open to them.
	Does he realise what a phoney he now looks? Has he found a single person who believes his excuses for cancelling the election?

Gordon Brown: He talks about a clamour for an election. I looked at the Downing street website this morning. There is a petition on the website [ Interruption. ]

Mr. Speaker: Order. Allow the Prime Minister to answer.

Gordon Brown: Certainly there is a petition on the Downing street website calling for an election. It is signed by 26 peopleand not one of them is on the Conservative Front Bench. We will govern in the interests of the people, and what matters to the people is the health service, education and housing. We will govern to make housing, health and education better in this country.

David Cameron: The Prime Minister is going to have to do better than that. Let us try another claim. Did the draft of the pre-Budget report, written before the Conservative party conference, include plans for the taxation of non-doms and the raising of inheritance tax? It is a simple question: yes or no?

Gordon Brown: If the right hon. Gentleman looks back to the summer and to the interviews given by the Chancellor, he will see that he talked about these very issues. We have raised the exemption on inheritance tax on 10 occasions since 1997, and we have dealt with tax avoidance in relation to non-domiciles and non-residents on many occasions since 1997. We are going to continue to take the right decisions for the country. It is very interesting that he has raised the issue of inheritance tax and non-domiciles, and I think that we can have a detailed discussion on this over the next few weeks. He will have to explain to the House, as we will explain to the House, that there are not 150,000, or even 115,000, non-domiciles who would pay this tax; there are only 15,000. When the Conservatives start to look at the official figures, they will find that they could raise only 650 million, not 3.5 billion, as they claim. As for inheritance taxagain, I welcome the debate that we are going to have in the country on thiswe can exempt estates below 700,000 by 2010 and put money into health and education. The Conservative party are going to put 2 billion into giving money to those with estates above 950,0001 billion to those who are already rich. When the debate is held in the country, people will choose our policies and reject theirs.

David Cameron: I tell you what: if you have got some questions about our policy, find a bit of courage, discover a bit of bottle, get in your car, go down to Buckingham palace and call that election.
	The Prime Minister now tells us that he was planning to change the rules on inheritance tax and non-doms all along. He is treating the British people like fools. Next, he will be telling us how much he admires Margaret Thatcher! Let us try another example of straight talking from the Prime Minister. Your manifesto said [ Interruption. ] The Prime Minister said that the Labour manifesto was an issue of trust. That manifesto promised a referendum on the European constitution. Do you understand how not holding that referendum damages your credibility?

Gordon Brown: If we were having a debate on the euro, we would have a referendum. If it was the old treaty, we would have a referendum. But because we have won in negotiations, by standing up for British interests, all the red lines that we asked for have been achieved. When the intergovernmental conference reports, he will see very clearly that these red lines have been achieved. I just ask the right hon. Gentleman to look at the issue of the referendum. Every single shadow Cabinet member who was in this Parliament in 1992 voted against a referendum on the Maastricht treaty. Every country apart from Ireland that wanted a referendum a few months ago no longer wants one. We stand up for the British national interest, and we will continue to do so.

David Cameron: Nobody believes him. The Labour-dominated European Scrutiny Committee says that the EU treaty is substantially equivalent to the constitution. It says that pretending otherwise is misleading. When Labour MPs say this, why should anyone believe the Prime Minister?

Gordon Brown: Because I have the report here and it makes a distinction between the treaty [ Interruption. ] Oh yes [ Interruption. ] Well, if people want a debate about the future, they should read the full report. It makes a distinction between the treaty itself and its effect on Britain with the protocols, the opt-ins, the exemptions, the emergency brake and the veto. What the Leader of the Opposition forgets is that we went to Brussels and negotiated for Britain the opt-out, the protocol, the opt-in and the emergency brake. We have stood up for the British national interest. That is more than the Conservative party ever did over Maastricht.

David Cameron: What we will not forgetand what the British people will not forgetis that the Prime Minister made a promise and he has broken it. We have a Prime Minister who will not talk straight about the election, who will not own up on inheritance tax and who will not keep his promises on an EU referendum. Never have the British people been treated with such cynicism. For 10 years the Prime Minister plotted and schemed to have this joband for what? No conviction, just calculation; no vision, just a vacuum. Last week he lost his political authority, and this week he is losing his moral authority. How long are we going to have to wait before the past makes way for the future?

Gordon Brown: This is the man who wanted an end to the Punch and Judy show! This is the man who wanted an end to name calling! We are the Government who have created 10 years of economic stability in this country. We are the Government who adopted the minimum wageagainst Conservative advice. We are the Government who made the Bank of England independentagainst Conservative advice. We are the Government who have delivered record rises in health expenditureagainst Conservative advice. We are the Government who are improving our education systemagainst Conservative advice. We will continue to govern in the interests of the whole country.

Martin Salter: Yesterday the Chancellor of the Exchequer revealed that an increase in the inheritance tax threshold to 1 million would hand an eye-watering windfall of 1 billion to just 1 per cent. of the richest estates in this country. Has the Prime Minister had an opportunity to cross-reference those figures with the Register of Members' Interests to find out how many Members would benefit from the Conservative proposals?

Gordon Brown: Let us have this debate about the future of inheritance tax. I welcome such a debate, because there is a choice to be made between those who favour raising the threshold to 700,000 and using the extra money to spend on health and education, and those who want a 1 million threshold, which would mean giving 1 billion to the top 1.5 per cent. in this country. I know how the British people will feel about that issue: they will want investment in health and education, as well as the improvements in inheritance tax. Once the Conservative party settles down, it will realise that by publishing its election manifesto early, it has ensured that that will be dissected week by week in the House of Commons.

Menzies Campbell: As the Prime Minister has stolen Liberal Democrat policies in order to help the better-off, will he also steal Liberal Democrat policies in order to assist lower and middle-income families, and cut the basic rate of income tax to 16p in the pound?

Gordon Brown: We are cutting the basic rate of income tax, from 22p to 20p in the poundbut what we will not do is follow Liberal party policy, which would cut the basic rate by another 4p, costing 12 billion and putting the public finances at risk. In exactly the same way as the Conservative party, the Liberals would put the management of the economy at risk. We will not follow that policy.

Menzies Campbell: Let us remember that the Prime Minister's cut in the basic rate is at the expense of some of the poorest people in the country. Was not the most glaring omission in yesterday's pre-Budget report statement the absence of any proposals for reform of the unfair council tax? Council tax is set to rise by twice the rate of inflation. How fair is that for low and middle-income families?

Gordon Brown: The right hon. and learned Gentleman should look at his own proposals. First, he faces an 18 billion black hole in his proposals. Secondly, he is not offering people a free gift on council tax, as he wants to replace it by local income tax, which would mean people paying 3p in the pound more. Thirdly, at every point where I have costed the Liberal party proposals, nothing adds up. The Liberals would be better going back to the drawing board.

Robert Wareing: The Government are giving considerable assistance to London in preparation for the 2012 Olympic games. I wonder whether the Prime Minister has considered any increase in the assistance going to Liverpool, which next year celebrates being the European city of culture. I am thinking in particular of increased funds for the Merseyside police and the local authorities.

Gordon Brown: I congratulate Liverpool on becoming the city of culture. Having visited the city and seen what has been done to prepare for that, I know that there is more urban regeneration place in Liverpool than at any time in the last 20 to 25 years. I would also say to my hon. Friend that the local government settlement and the public expenditure plans announced yesterday will help Liverpool and the north-west, ensuring that jobs can be created in the area and that urban regeneration continues. We will keep our promises to the people of Liverpool.

Nick Gibb: The Prime Minister might be aware of proposals in West Sussex to downgrade the accident and emergency units at either St. Richard's hospital in Chichester or at Worthing hospital. Will he therefore clarify Lord Darzi's comment on the Today programme last week that his statement that the days of the district general hospital are gone applies only
	to big metropolitan capital cities like London.
	Given that neither Chichester nor Worthing is a big metropolitan capital city, will the Prime Minister assure my constituents that both these excellent hospitals are now safe?

Gordon Brown: Obviously, I am happy to talk to the hon. Gentleman about what is happening in his constituency. I have to say, however, that he should be applauding yesterday's announcement that health service expenditure will go up from 90 billion to 110 billion. In the interests of accuracy, given that Conservative Members raised the issue throughout the summer, and listed 29 hospitals that they said were at risk or subject to reconfiguration, I should explain that it was immediately pointed out that 10 of those hospitals had no such plans. As far as the Leader of the Opposition is concerned, on the Horton hospital in Banbury, the shadow Health Secretary said,
	We wouldn't get that wrong.
	The chairman of the local heath trust then said,
	As far as the AE is concerned, there is no threat, indeed it's rather the opposite, the board has agreed to invest additional funds.
	Once again, the Conservatives cannot be trusted with the national health service.

Nick Palmer: In the past two weeks, we have heard alternative approaches to the taxation of foreign non-domiciles. Will the Prime Minister confirm that he is confident that the Government's approach will target people who can realistically be expected to be able to pay the tax?

Gordon Brown: It is right that people pay their fair share, and we have taken action against avoidance every year for the past 10 years. This will be a debate held over the next period of time, but I have to say that the proposal that we can find 150,000 non-domiciles to tax is completely wrong: only 115,000 are registered in this country, and only 15,000 have earnings and income that would allow them to consider that paying 25,000 in taxation was in their interests; others are nurses and teachers who earn little more than 25,000. When we asked where the calculations came from, first we were told that they came from  Accountancy Age, then we were referred back to  The Observer, and then we were referred back to a so-called tax expert, who was unnamed. Those who put forward proposals to tax non-domiciles, and say that they can raise 3.5 billion, will have to do better in future.

Patrick Cormack: Could the Prime Minister give us a cheerful answer, and tell me whether he believes that imitation is the surest way to salvation or merely the sincerest form of flattery?

Gordon Brown: When we made the Bank of England independent, the Conservatives opposed it; now they support it. When we created a minimum wage, they opposed it; now they support it. When we invested in the health service, they opposed it; now they support it. I know who has been leading the argument in this country: it is the Labour party.

Alan Whitehead: Does the Prime Minister think that people who want to return to work but have become trapped in the incapacity benefit system should be supported and encouraged to seek and obtain work, or forced to do so by the removal of their benefit?

Gordon Brown: There is an interesting debate to be heard on the future of incapacity benefit in this country. My hon. Friend is absolutely right: under our proposals, 1 million people will come off incapacity benefit by 2015. Under an alternative proposal, it is said that that figure could be 1.6 million: two thirds of those currently on incapacity benefit would come off it and lose 5,000 per person. It is said that that proposal, put forward by the Opposition, would raise 3 billion. Given the number of constituents we know who are disabled and who are in wheelchairs, and the many who are mentally as well as physically handicapped, the idea that 1.6 million of 2.7 million people could come off incapacity benefit by the beginning of the next Parliament is faintly ridiculous. Given that we already expect 1 million to come off incapacity benefit, those who say that they can raise 3 billion from that proposal are, again, completely wrong.

Ian Paisley: May I remind the Prime Minister that some time ago an announcement was made about Northern Ireland losing many of its Army installations, and a promise was made in a joint statement that the people of Northern Ireland would benefit from what was done with those areas of Government ownership? Will the Prime Minister give me an assurance today that that will be done, and will he announce the time when it will be done?

Gordon Brown: I hope that the right hon. Gentleman, who is the First Minister in Northern Ireland, will accept that the public expenditure settlement reached yesterday was very much in line with what we talked about previously; indeed, it was higher than the figures that I gave him before. I will certainly look at what he says about land in Northern Ireland, just as I am looking, as I promised to do, at the corporate tax regime in Northern Ireland. Perhaps we can talk about these issues at a later date.

Linda Gilroy: May I welcome the recent uplift in the minimum wage which is helping 90,000 people in the south-west? May I ask the Prime Minister to guarantee that the future of the minimum wage will be assured as long as he is Prime Minister?

Gordon Brown: The rise in the minimum wage, which came in on 1 October, is an increase from its initial 3.60, and it is now 5.35. It will continue to riseobviously, subject to economic conditions. What we have achieved in addition to that in the last few years is a minimum wage for teenagers. We were also able to introduce on 1 October the first number of days of paid holiday entitlement for workers in this countryagain, a sign that if we can keep the economy moving forward and have stable economic growth, the rewards will flow to the whole of the population, and not just to some of the population.

Damian Green: The Prime Minister recently described Burma as one of the world's darkest corners and said that human rights were universal, but his Government are still trying to deport Burmese dissidents into the hands of that dreadful regime. Will he tell the House why his moral compass has failed to identify this transparent hypocrisy?

Gordon Brown: I will certainly look at any individual cases that the hon. Gentleman brings to me, and look at them sympathetically, but there is an appeals system and that will be dealt with.
	May I say that I hope that there will be all-party support on Burma? This is a repressive and illegitimate regime. Aung San Suu Kyi was the elected democratic leader of Burma. The sanctions that we will step up in the European Union are necessary to tell that Burmese regime that what it is doing is completely unacceptable. I hope that the Secretary-General of the United Nations will be able to lead a United Nations team that will bring reconciliation to the people of Burma.

David Blunkett: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the reported statement from the Association of British Insurers on future cover for flood damage is deeply unhelpful, and will lead people to conclude that the industry wishes to remove any commercial risk to its own profits and place that risk instead on current and future policyholders, including families and businesses in my own Sheffield constituency?

Gordon Brown: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. I think that what the Association of British Insurers announced today is a review of its practices for the future. I hope that it will not take the step that he suggests, which might be considered, of denying people insurance. I also have to say, again in the interests of accuracy, that over the summer and very recently, the Association of British Insurers has asked that by 2011 we spend 750 million a year on flood defences. The figures that we announced yesterday are that we have raised spending on flood defences from 600 million this year to 800 million in 2011. I hope that whatever difference there is between the Association of British Insurers and usa very small difference, on the figures involvedwe can show, as a result of the Pitt report, which will come soon, that we are doing everything we can to improve flood defences in this country.

Graham Brady: On 20 September the governor of the Bank of England said that the market abuse directive had undermined his ability to carry out an operation that would have been in the interests of everyone connected with Northern Rock. Does the Prime Minister agree?

Gordon Brown: The Chancellor will make a statement on that very matter in the House tomorrow. There is an issue about the requirement to make dealings that take place to try to rescue companies transparent, and there is an issue that must be dealt with in the European Union as part of that, but other issues arise from Northern Rock which I think are probably more important for the longer term. There is, for instance, the question of how the international community can come together to arrange an early warning system when events happen in America, affect Europe and then affect the United Kingdom. On all those issues, the Chancellor will make a statement tomorrow.

Helen Jones: The brutal murder of my constituent Mr. Garry Newlove has highlighted continuing concerns about the effects of under-age drinking. I welcome what the Government have done so far to tackle the problem, but can my right hon. Friend assure me that he will consider what needs to be done now? In particular, will he assure me that he will try to persuade the industry to end the immoral practice of targeting alcoholic drinks directly at young people, and enforce severe penalties for those who sell alcohol to under-age youngsters?

Gordon Brown: I share my hon. Friend's sadness, and send my condolences to the family of her constituent.
	We are committed to doing everything in our power to tackle antisocial behaviour, and specifically under-age drinking. I have appealed in the past to alcohol and drinks companies to advertise the dangers of teenage drinking far more widely. We have said repeatedly that we will fine, and impose heavy penalties in closing down, shops that sell illegally to young people. I urge councils to use their new powers to ban alcohol in trouble spots. Police already have powers to disperse young people who are involved in alcohol-fuelled disorder, and I hope that they will use their powers as well. Local authorities can designate areas in their towns, including town centres, and make it an offence to drink alcohol there. The combination of all those measuresas well as, I believe, a review of the 24-hour drinking lawsis an essential element of making it absolutely clear that teenage drinking is unacceptable at the level at which it is being carried out in our towns and inner cities, and that action must be taken.

Lynne Featherstone: Does the Prime Minister think it right that a pupil in my constituency receives, on average, 736 less than a pupil in an inner-London borough, although the cost of employing a teacher is the same? Will he put an end to that huge injustice, so that schools in Hornsey and Wood Green can finally be given a fair funding deal?

Gordon Brown: I should have thought the hon. Lady would accept that expenditure per pupil in every part of the country is rising. I hope she will accept that although in 1997 we inherited a situation in which average expenditure was only 2,500 per pupil, it is now 5,500 per pupil and rising. Of course we will continue to look at what happens in particular areasin this case, the outer London areabut it is only because of this Government's policies in securing economic growth that every school pupil in the country is enjoying additional investment in the future.

Tom Clarke: Given the still extremely serious situation in Darfur, will my right hon. Friend explain what steps his Government took during the recess to support Security Council resolution 1769, as well as the wider peace agreement in Sudan, in order to ensure that humanitarian aid is delivered in desperate circumstances, and that this carnage is discontinued?

Gordon Brown: I know that my right hon. Friend has taken a huge interest in these matters, and in the future of the whole of Africa. I think the United Nations resolution that was achieved at the beginning of the summer is now being complemented by the United Nations-African Union forces, who are ready to come to Darfur and to be there on the ground. At the same time, we want an end to hostilities, and there is a sense that all the parties in Darfur may be prepared to bring an end to them as the peace talks begin. The combination of peace talks beginning in the next few days, and the possibility of an end to hostilities, gives us hope that this outragewhich has meant that 2 million people have been displaced, 4 million are in famine and a quarter of a million have diedcan soon be brought to an end.

Michael Spicer: When will Worcestershire get insurance-proof flood defences?

Gordon Brown: I hope that as a result of the announcements we made yesterday to increase the money for flood defences from 300 million in 1997 to 600 million now, 650 million next year, 700 million the year after and 800 million the year after that, the hon. Gentleman's constituency, and every other constituency where there are flood defence issues, will benefit. He might have heard the head of the Environment Agency saying this morning that it would be able to continue to spend more money on flood defences not only in his region, but all over the country.

Phyllis Starkey: Will the Prime Minister consider visiting Milton Keynes to see the large number of new houses being built as a result of this Government's policies, together with new schools and GP surgeries, and does he agree that building more houses is the most effective way of increasing the supply of affordable housing, and that a cut in stamp duty would simply be taken up in increased prices if demand continues to outstrip supply?

Gordon Brown: If we are to have a housing strategy that ensures that there is affordable housing for young couples, we need to build more houses, and the demand and supply equation must be improved. In the last 10 years there have been almost 2 million more owner-occupiers. For the next few years, we hope to build 3 million new houses by 2020. I must say, however, that Conservative councils that are resisting plans to build more houses will not help the country meet its objectives. There must be a common effort by all parties if we are to achieve the number of houses that people need.

Health and Social Care

Alan Johnson: After a decade of unprecedented investment in the NHS, we see the results in more staff, 1 million more operations each year, 100 new hospitals, reduced waiting times and lower mortality rates, particularly for cancer and cardiovascular diseases. Having expanded capacity in the service, we can now focus even more closely on raising quality. Last week, Lord Darzi published his interim report setting out a vision for world-class health and health care in England, developed and owned by patients, staff and the public. Yesterday's comprehensive spending review settlement enables us to take the measures necessary to begin to implement that vision.
	It is a good settlement for the NHS: locking in current record levels of spending and adding real-terms increasesyear on yearso that total health spending will rise from just over 90 billion in 2007-08 to 110 billion in 2010-11. That represents a real-terms increase of 4 per cent. a year on planned spend, compared with an historic average of 3.1 per cent. In 18 years under the Tories, real-terms growth was 3 per cent. In the five years up to 1997, it was 2.6 per cent. In 14 years under Labour up to 2010-11, real-terms growth will average 5.6 per cent. That extra funding is essential if we are to meet the challenges of an ageing society, the opportunities of new technology and the demands of rising public expectations of what a health service in the 21st century should deliver. I am proud that it is a Labour Government that have delivered, and will continue to deliver, these necessary increases in funding.
	Lord Darzi's interim report drew out four overarching themes for the NHS over the next 10 years: fairness, personalisation, innovation and safety. First, an NHS which is fair: no single institution has made a greater contribution to social equity in this country than the NHS, yet 60 years on, whilst the health of all income groups has improved dramatically, stubborn health inequalities remain. We will begin to address one important element of this problem with a new 250 million access fund that will deliver at least 100 new GP practices in the 25 per cent. of primary care trusts with the poorest provision. These practices will bring the most modern health care models direct to the nation's most deprived areas. They will offer an innovative range of services, will be open for longer, and will have a specific remit to prevent ill health rather than simply treat it. That is crucial when lifestyle choices are responsible for as much as half of the gap in health outcomes.
	Secondly, we want an NHS that is personalised. That means that GP practices should fit around people's lifestyles, not the other way around. We have set a clear aim that, working with new and existing GP practices, we will ensure that at least a half of all surgeries are open either at weekends or after work. We will also explore all the options for making it easier to see a GP nearer to the workplace for those who commute.
	The new access fund will also establish at least 150 new GP-run health centres in easily accessible locations, open seven days a week from 8 am to 8 pm. These will offer bookable appointments, walk-in services and, in some cases, access to physiotherapy, diagnostics and social care services. There will be at least one in each PCT area.
	More than a third of GP time is spent dealing with mental health problems, from which one in six people suffer at any one time. Mental illness accounts for 40 per cent. of those on incapacity benefit. Prescription medication provides a successful treatment for many, but we know that psychological therapies work equally well, and often prove to be more effective in the long term. The time has come to do much more to help those with depression and anxiety.
	I can announce todaywhich is, of course, world mental health daythat we will build a groundbreaking psychological therapy service in England. Backed by new investment rising to 170 million by 2010-11, the service will be capable of treating 900,000 additional patients suffering from depression and anxiety over the next three years. Around half are likely to be completely cured, with many fewer people with mental health problems having to depend on sick pay and benefits.
	Thirdly, we want an NHS that is innovative. British scientists have been responsible for discovering some of the most important medical breakthroughs in history. In this modern age of rapid medical scientific and technological advance, we must ensure that the NHS remains at the cutting edge of developments in products, processes and procedures.
	We will establish a new health innovation council to drive a more innovative NHS, identifying and removing barriers to change. The council will bring together all the splendid work that is going on, from discovery through development to adoption, and ensure that ideas can pass efficiently from the labs to patients without any compromise to patient safety. In addition, we will set up a new 100 million fund for innovation jointly funded with the Wellcome Trust.
	We will also expand the single fund for health research to 1.7 billion. In the 18th century, Edward Jenner discovered the smallpox vaccine. In the 19th century, British scientists developed anaesthetics and antiseptics. In the 20th century, Alexander Fleming discovered antibiotics. In the 21st century, we want British scientists to combine to lead in the fight against global killers such as cancer and HIV/AIDS.
	Fourthly, we want an NHS that is safe. Health care-acquired infections are a growing problem around the world. Hospital cleanliness should be the last concern of patients and the first duty of everyone in the health service. We have announced that all hospitals will be deep cleaned at least once a year. Isolation wards will be extended wherever possible, and we will empower and encourage matrons and nurses to use their expertise to fight infection on the front line.
	The Health and Social Care Bill contained in our draft legislative programme will provide the new health and adult social regulator with tougher powers, backed by fines, to inspect, investigate and intervene in those hospitals that fail to meet hygiene and infection control standards. As Lord Darzi recommended and the CSR provides for, we will invest 130 million to introduce MRSA screening for all admissions, elective and emergency, over the next three years. We will also put a further 140 million into reducing clostridium difficile infection rates.
	To develop an NHS that is clinically led and locally driven we need more local accountability. I have already said that there will be no top-down structural reorganisation of strategic health authorities and primary care trusts for the foreseeable future. Although we must ensure minimum standards, we will not impose a swathe of new targets. We know that future improvements will come from more local ownership, fewer top-down targets and concentration on better health outcomes.
	As Lord Darzi has said, any change to NHS services must clear a high clinical bar, based on full engagement with patients and the public. Ensuring that the health service is clinically led will be pivotal to ensuring that the service moves from good to greatworld class in all aspects instead of just some. How we match local ownership with greater local accountability will be one of the principal aspects of Lord Darzi's continuing work.
	The historical problem for the health service has been under-investment. The challenge today is to ensure that we maximise the potential of this unprecedented level of increased investment. The public want more money to be spent on the NHS, but they also require it to be spent well. Measuring productivity when quality of care is paramount is not an easy task, as Wanless highlighted recently. The better care, better value indicators, published yesterday, showed that 363 million of productivity improvements were achieved last year. Those first-step savings came from reducing the length of stay and from increasing prescriptions of low-cost generic statins for patients with high cholesterol. Those gains are modest but they point to the potential of what can be achieved without compromising patient care.
	We must now look to build on these achievements, systematically and sensibly. Over the course of this spending round, the NHS will deliver average value for money gains of 3 per cent. every year, releasing more than 8 billion a year by 2010-11 to spend on front-line care. There are some obvious areas that can contribute in that difficult task. Improving community-based services so that people with long-term conditions can receive greater support in the community could bring savings of about 500 million a year. Intervening with preventive action, such as regular health check-ups, when someone is at risk of illness could reduce the costs of chronic lifestyle diseases such as diabetes, heart disease or lung cancer. Spreading new technologies and best practice across the health service could lead to savings of 1.5 billion a year. Improving procurement could save 1 billion a year, and by introducing MRSA screening for all admissions we can reduce the risk of huge costs occurring later.
	In the face of unprecedented demographic change, it is clear that our social care system needs to respond. The Chancellor has announced that we will develop a Green Paper exploring options for reform, with the aim of increasing dignity and reducing dependency for those who rely on our social care systems. The social care settlement is divided into two parts: local government grant and direct funding from my Department for social care. The local government support grant will increase by 2.6 billion by 2010-11 and direct funding from the Department of Health for adult social care, which covers, for example, carers, mental health and the social care work force, will increase by an average of 2.3 per cent. a year in real terms, worth 190 million.
	That funding will enable social services to do more to give service users and their carers greater choice and control over the way in which their needs are met. In particular, the investment will enable further expansion of care tailored to the individual; it will go into prevention and improving people's quality of life. It will enable more individuals to live independent lives in their own home. But as the Wanless report on social care identified, we need a radical rethink about how we fund that crucial element for everyone in need, not just the elderly, in the future. The Green Paper will begin that important process.
	Those are our concrete plans for future investment in the NHS, which our party created and then rescued from Tory decline. The Opposition promise to spend 2 billion on a tax cut for a wealthy elite, whereas we will spend that money on delivering a better health system for all our people. They have a black hole to fill and a dilemma to fix: either they break their promise on inheritance tax or they break their commitment to match our investment in the NHS.
	Lord Darzi and his team of 1,500 clinicians will finalise the NHS next stage review in time for the 60th anniversary of the NHS. This is an exciting time for everyone involved in health care, but as the comprehensive spending review demonstrated, it is patients and the public who will continue to benefit from a national health service that is rising to the challenges of the 21st century. I commend the statement to the House.

Andrew Lansley: I am grateful to the Secretary of State for the opportunity to see the statement in advance. I am sure that the House will be grateful for the opportunity to debate the announcements on health spending that were made yesterday, and indeed Lord Darzi's interim report, which was mysteriously brought forward to be part of what we have just heard from the Secretary of Statea cobbled-together, pre-election series of announcements, which add up to no vision at all for the future of the national health service.
	Where was the reference to patient choice in what the Secretary of State had to say? Where was the reference to a voice for patients, a voice that the Government have persistently taken away from them? Where is the freedom for doctors, nurses and NHS professionals, so that they can deliver the care that they want for their patients, free from top-down targets? Where are the separate public health investment and the dedicated resources for delivering on public health measures, which have failed under the Government in the past decade? Where was the reference to an NHS that is open to new providers, bringing in new investment and new capacity? In contrast, over the past year the Government have cut the national health service's prospective building budgets.
	The Secretary of State talked about Derek Wanless. Let me remind him that last month Derek Wanless reviewed the report that he gave to the Prime Minister. He said,
	what is equally clear from this review is that we are not on course to deliver the sustainable and world class health care system, and ultimately the healthier nation, that we all desire.
	And why? Because none of the three requirements that Wanless set out five years agothe need to improve productivity, technology and public healthhas been met. There was nothing about improving public health in what the Secretary of State had to say. There was nothing about technology or the review, which is absolutely necessary, of the NHS IT programme.
	On productivity, we all know, as do people working in the national health service, that what really matters is not just the resources that they receive, but the ability to deliver improving and effective care as a result of them. However, in reality, under this Government there has been bureaucracy, over-regulation, distorting top-down targets and declining productivity. The Office for National Statistics made it clear that there has been a 1.3 per cent. a year reduction in productivity in health care. Just last month, it said that there was a 2.1 per cent. a year reduction in productivity in social care.
	The Secretary of State reiterated the numbers from yesterday's comprehensive spending review statement, but as always with this Government, and in particular with this Prime Minister, one has to look at the small print. The Secretary of State says that there is a 4 per cent. real-terms increase, but in reality, in the Budget in March this year, the then Chancellor of the Exchequer took 2 billion out of the national health service's planned capital budgets. Yesterday, the Chancellor of the Exchequer said that he would put that 2 billion back in by 2011, but of course, as he had reduced the denominator, he made the percentage increase look larger than it would otherwise have done. If the 2 billion that had been taken out in March was still in planned Department of Health spending, the real-terms increase to 2011 would have been just 3.2 per cent. That is less than half the rate of increase of recent years and, indeed, well below the 4.4 per cent. minimum real-terms increase that Derek Wanless recommended to the then Chancellor five years ago.
	The NHS needs certainty. Given that the Government have failed on reform and that the NHS needs a new Conservative Government as soon as possible who will deliver that reform, I make it clear to the House that a Conservative Government will match the Government's proposed health spending through to 2011. But we will spend the money better. We will not be a Government who cut 8,000 beds as a consequence of financial deficits when patients are contracting hospital-acquired infections because of excessive bed occupancy. We will not be a Government who permit a situation where 14,000 junior doctors apply for training posts and do not attract them in the first round. We will not have a situation where trained nurses, physiotherapists and midwives who are needed in the NHS cannot find jobs. We will be a Government who deliver better productivity.
	The Secretary of State said that 1 million more operations were taking place. If the productivity gains before 1997 had continued since then, there would be 2 million more operations taking place in the NHS rather than 1 million, and waiting lists would be a thing of the past.
	What have we heard from the Secretary of State? He has given us re-announcementsI have the details here, should hon. Members wish to see them. In January 2006, the previous Secretary of State said that the Government were going to remedy the failures of their own general practitioner contract and secure more GPs in deprived areas. Two years ago, we were told that that would be done with immediate effectthat did not happen. In January 2006, we were told that there would be extended opening hours for GPs, but that has not happened and the Government are re-announcing the measure now.
	The Secretary of State said that there will now be money for screening for admissions to hospital. Does he not know that such a provision is already in the published code of practice, which was debated in this House, but it just has not been implemented? He is now borrowing our policies. In our manifesto for the last general election, we made it clear that we would provide additional resources for the rapid screening of patients for hospital-acquired infections. It has taken two and a half years for the Government even to catch up with our policies.
	The Government's latest announcements contain a U-turn in respect of individual budgets that embrace both health care and social care. We have recommended that. If the Secretary of State were to think back to January 2006 and the White Paper, he would recall that when I challenged his predecessor to do precisely that, she and the Government said that they would not do so. They have now had to do a U-turn and accept Conservative policies.
	On social care, the Government have failed time and again. The Secretary of State talks about a partnership model, but the King's Fund report made it clear that Kent county council, a Conservative local authority, had undertaken a pilot project on a partnership model and wanted to do further analysis. What did the report say? It stated:
	In the end, Kent County Council found there was no appetite from either the Department of Health or the Treasury to fund further modelling on how such a scheme could be implemented, each department wanting the other to sponsor the work.
	The Government cannot join up the work of Departmentsin fact, there is not even a joined-up approach inside the Department of Health.
	Today's social care announcements are for a 1 per cent. real-terms increase in social care budgets in local authorities, the effect of which will be to create additional charges for adult social services in local authorities across the country and to force an increase in council taxes. Those will be the consequences, but what we need are individual budgets and the greater efficiency that will come from them.
	I welcome the Secretary of State's comments about support for talking therapies and mental health services. Professor Layard and my colleagues have been asking for just that. Is the Secretary of State confident that the thousands of additional counsellors and therapists needed to make that happen will be available? Does he see this as reflecting the pilot in Newham, which has an integrated model with other agencies, or is it closer to the one in Doncaster?
	What we have heard today contains no vision, but it does contain re-announcements of things that the Government have said before and policies stolen from the Conservative party. The Government are flagrantly unwilling to apologise for the cuts and closures that are happening in the NHS across the country because of their failed management. We have a Secretary of State who has no ideas of his own, a Government who have no chance of delivering change and a Labour party that has no hope at an election now or in the future.

Alan Johnson: That was very disappointing. The hon. Gentleman has been on the Front Bench since 2003, but nothing in his contribution takes us any further forward on health policies.
	Let me deal with the first point, because it shows how pathetic the Opposition are getting. We have heard criticisms, the first of which was that we brought the Darzi report forwardanother was that the Prime Minister opened a hospital twice. On the first point, I must point out to the hon. Gentleman that on 4 July I said in this House that Darzi's interim report would be presented in three monthsit was presented on 4 October, which was exactly three months laterand that it would come before the comprehensive spending review.
	On the hospital, I must admit that I was rather crushed when I visited that splendid new facility in Basildon, of which we should all be proud, where some 60 million has been invested in cardiothoracic surgery. It was so exciting that I asked whether I could open it. I was told by the people running it, No, we have asked the Prime Minister or the Queen to do it. That put me in my place. Indeed, they wrote in early July to ask the Prime Minister to open it in October. Unless the Conservative party has been so long out of government that they have forgotten that many buildings open and then are officially opened some time afterwards, it is a strange

Graham Stuart: Say something of substance.

Alan Johnson: The hon. Gentleman asks me to say something of substance. Well, I could mention the new community hospital being built in Beverley, which he curiously never mentions in any debate on health.
	The hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley) also said that we have somehow abandoned choice and abandoned new providers. The Minister of State, Department of Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr. Bradshaw), has been talking all morning to the independent sector about precisely the announcement that I have made about introducing these new, state-of-the-art facilities, which will be open from 8 am to 8 pm, seven days a week, into 150 PCTs around the country. We are talking to the independent sector all the time. I have made it clear in the House that we will judge the use of the independent sector on whether it can add to capacity, whether it provides value for money and whether it can improve the service.
	The hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire also mentioned Wanless. I shall make it clear what his report said:
	The funding increase has helped to deliver some clear and notable improvementsmore staff and equipment; improved infrastructure; significantly reduced waiting times and better access to care; and improved care in coronary heart disease, cancer, stroke and mental health.
	Wanless also says that
	the direction of health care policy now being pursued by the government
	is
	correct to address the key challenges identified in the 2002 review.
	For good measure, he said:
	The NHS is now in better shape than in 2002 to deliver improved quality and increased productivity.
	I will swap Wanless quotes all day.
	The hon. Gentleman also raised an important point of substance on productivity, which I mentioned in my statement. I said how difficult this issue was and that we have made modest gains over the past year. As he well knows, the difficulty is that people can examine two calculations. One can show that productivity has declined by 7 per cent. since 2002 and the other can show that it has increased by 8 per cent. The problem is how one defines quality of care when examining productivity. GPs now spend four minutes more with each patient than they did in the early '90s. The onus must be on spending more time and personalising care. The National Audit Office and others have found it almost impossible to define how one puts quality into productivity considerations. That is the dilemma. It is not that NHS staff are not working hard and doing their best: it is about how we reflect that in the statistics.
	The hon. Gentleman also talks about the 4 per cent. real-terms increase. This is an amazing continuation of record investment in the NHS. It is a 4 per cent. increase on forecast spend in this year. He promises to match it, and he also suggests that the Conservatives will go further on social care. That will just add to their black hole problem. Incidentally, the most recent document that I have read on their policies in this area contained just one sentence on social care.
	We are saying that the 2006 Wanless report was a very important contribution. We need to move forward on it now, because Wanless made some important points, not least of which concerned the need for a partnership to cope with social care. He was examining how we provide proper social care in 2026.
	Our self-regard increases all the time as the Opposition nick our policies, but let us get this straight. They have now signed up to the NHS funded by the taxpayer. The patient passport, which was their policy, has gone. They have signed up to the idea of the NHS 60 years after we created it, having opposed it bitterly when it was introduced. They have signed up to the 10 core principles of the NHS plan, which we introduced in 2000 and they opposed. They have just come round to signing up to the spending commitments that we agreed in 2004. Accusing us of nicking their policies is rather rich coming from a party that has decided at last that it cares about the NHS. The public will see through that.

Kevin Barron: I welcome my right hon. Friend's statement and its implications, particularly the 250 million access fund to open up another 100 GP practices in areas where there are great health inequalities. That is not rocket science, yet for 60 years areas of the country have had high ill-health indices and high levels of health inequalities, but have not had the high levels of activity in the national health service that there should have been. Patient-GP ratios are a simple measure showing where we should be working. In some areas those ratios are far too high. I welcome the Government's revolutionary initiative. To say that it is not new is nonsenseit is new, and it is welcomed by those who represent areas such as mine.

Hon. Members: Answer that!

Alan Johnson: rose

Mr. Speaker: Order. The right hon. Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Barron) did not ask a question. So far there have not been many questions. Perhaps we can have questions from now on.

Alan Johnson: One thing that cannot be denied is the enormous contribution that my right hon. Friend has made over a number of years. He will remember the Black report, which was commissioned under a Thatcher Government to look at health inequalities. It was published on a bank holiday Monday, 260 copies were produced and it disappeared without trace. The Conservatives did nothing about health inequalities, apart from worsen the situation.
	My right hon. Friend is right. The Opposition say that there is nothing of substance in the statement. However, we have announced 170 million to be spent on psychological therapy services, 270 million on health care-acquired infections, 250 million on access, part of which is for the crucial 25 per cent. of PCTs with the least provision, and 100 million on innovation. That is not bad for a seven-minute statement.

Norman Lamb: I thank the Secretary of State for early sight of the statement. In his response to the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley), he referred to the fact that he had delivered the interim report exactly three months after he had promised to do so, which was before the summer recess. That must be the first time ever that a Government report has been published on time. I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on his impeccable timing.
	I start by acknowledging the good things in the report. We warmly welcome the extra investment in psychological therapies, which is long overdue. There are many people languishing on incapacity benefit who could be helped back to work but who are not getting the help that they need. I also welcome the announcement on screening for hospital-acquired infectionsa necessary change. I hope the Secretary of State agrees that there should be a zero tolerance of low hygiene standards, following the Dutch example, which nails down the standards expected in hospitals.
	I welcome the greater flexibility in accessing GPs and the focus on securing more access to GPs in the most deprived communities. The fact that people in those communities have poorer access to primary care is wholly unacceptable. If the proposal starts to address that, it is a good thing. The statement refers to local accountability. For a long time the Government have used the rhetoric of local accountability, but what does it mean? Will there be any substance to the assertion that it is important to listen to local communities and that they should have a say, rather than just staff having a say, important as that is? Innovation and spreading best practice are clearly good things. Is it right, though, to set up another quango to deliver them? Is that necessarily the best way of achieving the aim? How will it sit alongside the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, which already does work in this area?
	The statement gives little attention to care for elderly people [Interruption.] The Secretary of State laughs, but this is an important issue. Is not Niall Dickson of the King's Fund right that the failure to support frail and vulnerable older people is one of the unrecognised scandals of our time? Although I welcome the tentative step towards some sort of resolution, is not the issue far more urgent than the Government acknowledge? The royal commission in 1999 recommended free personal care. The Liberal Democrats forced such a provision through in Scotland, and we want people in the rest of the UK to benefit in the way that people in Scotland already do.  [Interruption.] The Tories scoff, but it is a question of priorities. They prefer to give tax cuts of 300,000 to millionaires. We think that people who lose everything when a loved one develops dementia are a greater priority. Does the Secretary of State acknowledge that the Joseph Rowntree Foundation found that in Scotland there is more care as a result of the introduction of free personal care, more innovation in services and public support for the policy in Scotland some years after it was introduced? Is not the truth that the funding of social carecare for the elderlycontinues to lag scandalously behind other funding?
	The pre-Budget report highlights the fact that there is a 4 per cent. increase in NHS funding, which is absolutely necessary, but just a 1 per cent. increase for social care provided by local authorities. What is the justification for care for the elderly having such a low priority in the overall funding settlement? In the Department's budget for social care initiatives, why do we have to wait until 2010-11 before the bulk of the extra funding comes through, with very little extra funding next year or the year after? Is not the reality that social care continues to be cut and that yesterday's statement will do nothing to change that?
	Is it right that there should have been a 25 per cent. drop in households receiving domiciliary care in the past 10 years? The criteria tightened massively so that only the most urgent cases receive support, and charges were massively increased for people needing care in their own home. Is that not unacceptable treatment of elderly people? Why will we have to wait an interminable length of time before any reforms come in? Will the review include respite care? When I spoke to carers last week, they made it clear that their top priority was gaining access to respite care, which is unavailable to many people in many parts of the country.
	What is the timing of the review? When will concrete proposals be introduced and will the review be given priority? Is there any real hope of reform, given that public finances are much tighter? Why, when yesterday's statement perpetuated the funding crisis for elderly care, should we have any confidence that the Government are genuinely committed to badly needed reform?

Alan Johnson: I thank the hon. Gentleman for congratulating us on probably the only report delivered on time. We should proceed on that basis in future.
	On the question of how we develop the psychotherapy proposals, we are running trials, and we will extend the pilots to inform the way in which we introduce the measures. The aim is to provide a groundbreaking network right across the country, which will be set up during the comprehensive spending review period.
	In a balanced contribution, the hon. Gentleman's other positive pointI will address his criticisms in a momentconcerned the introduction of pre-screening across the health service. In the Netherlands, the incidence of MRSA was reduced to 1 per cent. over a long period, and one of the biggest factors was the introduction of pre-screening everywhere. As the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire mentioned, many hospitals pre-screen for elective surgery, but the introduction of pre-screening for emergency care requires isolation facilities. Reducing the length of the testing process, which is between 24 and 48 hours, is important. New technologies will allow us to do that and open up a new war against MRSA.
	The hon. Gentleman made an important point about local accountability. If politicians are removed from the process of reconfiguration, it will be clinically led. I have removed myself, so if a case is passed to me, I will pass it to the independent reconfiguration panel, which is clinically led. If that is to become a permanent arrangement, which is what Lord Darzi is considering, we need proper local accountability in the system. The hon. Gentleman is right that we should listen to local communities, and that will be a big part of Lord Darzi's final piece of work heading towards the report next year.
	On innovation, a quango will not be involved. I understand the point about the other initiatives and NICE, but the organisations involved have welcomed the setting up of the innovation council, because, as I said in my statement, a lot is happening on development. There is no overarching view, which is what the innovation council will bring. The Wellcome Trust is enthusiastic, and I think that the scheme has achieved widespread buy-in. I assure the hon. Gentleman that there is no danger of duplication.
	The hon. Gentleman made a long contribution, and I am trying to respond to the issues he raised. In his criticisms, he stated that we should go down the Scottish route and provide free care for the elderly, but that is not what the Wanless report states. The hon. Gentleman is sitting close to the hon. Member for Romsey (Sandra Gidley), who is a Front-Bench health spokesperson and who said in the House that she regretted the fact that her party's manifesto had misled people to believe that care could be free. There is a disagreement not only between the hon. Gentleman and Wanless, but between the hon. Gentleman and the person who is two seats away from him.

Andrew Lansley: Hardly a surprise.

Alan Johnson: Wanless did not go for a soft option. The Scottish route would be a soft option.

David Kidney: It is unaffordable.

Alan Johnson: It is not only unaffordable. In Scotland, the cap on payments is 214 a week, and the average cost of health care is 217 more than that. The majority of people in Scotland pay for health care for the elderly, which is why Wanless examined an affordable and sustainable solution.
	I have detained the House far too long. The hon. Gentleman has raised some important points, which we will debate at length at some stage. However, he should have welcomed the whole statement rather than some of it.

Bob Laxton: May I tell my right hon. Friend how much I welcome the visionary decision to put 170 million of new money into psychological services? Mental health trusts in Derby city and Derbyshire serve patients who in some cases have waited two years to access those services. Where will we get the clinicians, psychiatrists and therapists? Furtherthermore, there are serious organisational deficiencies around the country in how services are provided, not least in Derbyshire.

Alan Johnson: My hon. Friend is right about the urgent need to introduce such services. We made that manifesto commitment in 2005 and examined some pilots. We must secure the resources and tackle the organisational problems that my hon. Friend rightly raised. We do not intend to wait for the end of the three-year period, and we will immediately start to recruit extra staff and set up centres across the country to allow us to deal with the 900,000 people who are just offered drugs, when many of them would find therapy far more effective.

Nicholas Winterton: During the recess, I became involved in the case of an elderly, retired farmer living in a rural area who was terminally illhe was on both morphine and oxygen. I was incensed that the local PCT would not provide continuing health carefree care at homefor my terminally ill constituent. Social services found it extremely difficult to provide any form of care at home, and the family had to carry an unfair burden. Must not the Government and the national health service address such cases? That man, who was dying, deserved free care so that he could die with dignity.

Alan Johnson: If the hon. Gentleman writes to me about that case, I will look into it. We issued new guidance on 1 October, because, as he rightly pointed out, the issue is important. This is a dreadful American phrase, but the NHS was not particularly good at end-of-life issuesindeed, there was an element of postcode lottery. The hospices were set up to counter the fact that the NHS was not concentrating on that issue as much as it should have done, but the situation is changing. One of Lord Darzi's clinical review groups is considering that issue, and Lord Darzi will report on it next year. The guidance that we issued on 1 October was meant to address some of the points raised by the hon. Gentleman. The case that he described may have occurred in the recess before 1 October, but I want to look into it, because I agree that it is unacceptable.

Joan Walley: May I tell my right hon. Friend how much I welcome the statement and everything that it does to tackle health inequalities, particularly in areas such as Stoke-on-Trent? Last week, I visited North Staffordshire Carers Association, and I am sure that it will welcome the extra 190 million that will be available nationally. The real issue, which Opposition Members have raised, concerns social care and the Green Paper. Will my right hon. Friend hold urgent talks with the Alzheimer's Society on how we can ensure that the radical rethink will enable all the people who need extra social care to be treated with dignity?

Alan Johnson: My hon. Friend is right to raise that important issue. In the spring, we will publish our new deal for carers. I recently attended a reception in Bournemouth, where all the charity organisations and voluntary groups were enormously excited about the level of consultation on the new strategy. We have a new approach to dementia, which we need to tackle more intensively. Along with many other mental health problems, it is an important issue, but it has not been at the top of the agendain some cases, it was not even considered important, although it is the single biggest cause of ill health in this country.

Richard Taylor: Will the Secretary of State accept that more deaths result from preventable venous thrombosis in hospitalised patients than from MRSA? Does he support measures to make risk assessment mandatory, which would result in wider prevention?

Alan Johnson: Lord Darzi is considering that specific issue. Indeed, I believe that he recently spoke to the hon. Gentleman.

Richard Taylor: indicated dissent.

Alan Johnson: If Lord Darzi has not done so, he will be in touch soon, because he wants to talk to all the members of the Health Committee. We have an enormous amount in common on that issuewhether we can proceed as quickly as the hon. Gentleman would like is another thingand I think that that conversation should take place.

Lynne Jones: It is great news that the Government are investing much more in psychological therapies, which is surely an example of spending to save. However, if we are not going the full hog and adopting the recommendations of the royal commission, why are we waiting to implement the reforms on social care recommended by Wanless? I know that that would cost money, but yesterday the Government found money to help the winners in the lottery of lifethose who will not develop dementia or other conditions that require long-term care and who have assets in excess of 350,000. Does my right hon. Friend agree that a Labour Government should give priority to the losers in the lottery of life who develop such conditions, end up having to sell their homes and have no inheritance tax for the Government to take?

Alan Johnson: Wanless was considering a vision for social care in 2026. His report came out in 2006. We need to appraise it, and achieve close integration between Government Departments before we can begin the debate with a Green Paper. That does not mean that nothing will happen on social care between now and the publication of the Green Paperand the debate on it. For a start, there has been a 39 per cent. real-terms increase in the money invested in social care since 1997. Secondly, a concentration on individual budgets and individualisation is being led by authorities around the country. Recently, I was in Barnsley, where terrific things are being done. The settlement will allow us to move that forward.
	The situation is much like that relating to pensions a few years ago. We need cross-party consensus, because we are looking towards 2026. It does not have to be done this way, but we need a Turner report on social care that can cross boundaries that have never been crossed before. The NHS has never provided social care free of charge; it did not do so under Nye Bevan, and it does not do so now.

Angela Browning: Will the Secretary of State reflect on the false economy of removing fundamental services across health and social care and on its consequences? This week, a report from Age Concern about the consequences of the removal of chiropody services on the frail elderly was published. If people cannot cut their own toenailsa pretty basic thingand have no one to do it for them, they may fall over trying to do it themselves, which can be life threatening. They become less mobile. I hope that the Secretary of State will take account of that sort of thing, at that very basic level, as he seeks to improve services.

Alan Johnson: As always, the hon. Lady makes a sensible and pertinent point. Incidentally, Help the Aged has welcomed our commitment to a Green Paper and is part of the consensus on the need to discuss Wanless seriously, as grown-up politicians, and find agreement. The very point that she raised is why the issue is so important, because we now find in some areas that only those in need of the most desperate care are provided with help. People with serious needs, such as the elderly person mentioned by the hon. Lady, find that their services have been cut, and we need to address that. As Wanless pointed out, the cost of doing so effectively for everyonegiven an ageing population, demographic change and all the other things that we know aboutwould take up the whole pot of public money. We will have to find a solution that is different from the one found in Scotland.

Chris Mole: I welcome my right hon. Friend's comments about spreading new technologies and best practice, and I urge him to ignore the sniping of the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley) about the connecting for health programme. I used the recess as an opportunity to see the photo electron and x-rayPAXdigital programme at Ipswich hospital, which is absolutely fantastic. It delivers improved diagnostic imaging, which elicited unrequested congratulations from members of staff on the quality of the investment that the Labour Government have made in the PAX programme and on the benefits to them and their patients, as well as the savings

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman and other hon. Members should be putting questions. The hon. Gentleman can write to the Secretary of State and tell him what he did during the recess.

Alan Johnson: The gist of my hon. Friend's contribution was absolutely right.

Michael Penning: What was the question?

Alan Johnson: The question was about whether I agreed that lots of good things were happening in new technology in the NHS, and I am happy to say yes.

Ann Winterton: Why was there an important omission from the statement? Will the Secretary of State confirm that the GPs in all the new medical centres that he proudly announced will be free to prescribe what they consider the most appropriate and best medication for patients with conditions such as Alzheimer's and age-related macular degeneration? There should be not only social equity but health equity between some of the most vulnerable and elderly people in England and their counterparts in Scotland and Wales.

Alan Johnson: Unless I am wrong, Opposition Front Benchers would not go back to pre-NICE days.

Ivan Lewis: The hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley) would.

Alan Johnson: Well, I can happily say that I am not prepared to go back to those days. One of the world-class features of our NHS system that people around the world try to imitate is NICE. For the first time we have a system under which it is compulsory for all parts of the NHS to offer a drug, provided that it has been approved by NICE, which was a huge step forward. We could not go back to the days when it was up to a GP to decide such things, without a proper clinical examination.

Joan Humble: I welcome the announcement of additional funding for social care and a radical rethink in social care. However, as well as being radical, will the rethink be careful? Vulnerable adults and frail elderly people are already anxious about the services that they receive. They need reassurance that they will continue to receive support. They also need reassurance that their voices will be heard in any development of new services.

Alan Johnson: My hon. Friend is right. As I mentioned earlier, tackling the Green Paper does not mean that everything goes on hold. That additional funding is another real-terms increase on top of the 39 per cent. real-terms increase in social care. It is a combination of the funding from the Department of Health and from the Department for Communities and Local Government that goes to local government. That funding will result in far greater independence for the vulnerable people whom my hon. Friend mentioned.

Andrew George: May I tease out the limitsif there are anyto what the Secretary of State described in his statement as the matching of local ownership and greater local accountability in Lord Darzi's work? I am thinking especially of the integration of all health care with social care. Would the Secretary of State be prepared, for example, to consider local authorities taking on entirely decision making and budgetary control from PCTs?

Alan Johnson: Steady as we go, is the answer to that question. I am not yet able to say that we are getting to that position. However, in many local authority areas somebody from local government is on the PCT, so there is far greater integration. I do not know whether that is the final solution to the issue. I accept that I do not have the solution; I just know that Darzi's work is important to ensure local accountability. Otherwise if we remove politicians at national level and there is no increased accountability further down the system there will be a gaping hole. That is where the accountability needs to be. We need to talk the issues through, and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will make an important contribution to that debate.

Phil Wilson: Does the Secretary of State agree that the 250 million access fund, which will deliver 100 new GP practices, and the establishment of 150 new GP-run health centres, are nothing but good news for areas such as County Durham and for my constituents in Sedgefield? Will he meet me to see how best to implement those changes in Sedgefield, where health centre provision has been an issue?

Alan Johnson: Following the recent by-election, I know the constituency of Sedgefield. Those provisions will specifically help areas such as Sedgefield and others such as my constituency in Hull which have been under-doctored and have been for many years.
	For GP practices in the 25 per cent. of areas that are most poorly provided for, the statement unleashes 900 staffdoctors, nurses, health professionals, health visitors and community nursesinto the most deprived areas in our country, giving the very best services to areas that previously had the worst. I will happily talk to my hon. Friend about how that is being implemented in his constituency.

George Young: Does the Secretary of State recognise that although the title of his statement is Health and Social Care, only 12 words in it were about the major providers of social care in this countrylocal authorities? Does he recognise that they are spending billions over their standard spending assessment on social services, withdrawing preventive work, intervening only in life-threatening cases, pushing up charges and piling pressure on the council tax? Would it not have been better to share the proceeds of growth more evenly between the national health service and social services?

Alan Johnson: Lots of the money that we provide through the NHS will provide greater resources. I am not a representative of the Department for Communities and Local Government, but we will have an opportunity to talk about that issue.
	The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right about local authorities, which, incidentally, will have ring fencing removed as part of the settlement to give them greater freedom to spend money on priorities. That could well mean spending much more on social care. The problem that he identifies is how we keep that contribution sustainable, as the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Angela Browning) said, so that an increasing elderly population receive better care services than they do at the moment.  [ Interruption. ] It is a question not just of putting in better resources, but of dealing with the whole organisation and, as the Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, South (Mr. Lewis) says from a sedentary position, of the better use of existing resources. That can be done and some local authorities are doing it brilliantly. We need to spread that best practice more widely.

BILLs PRESENTED
	  
	Microgeneration and Local Energy

Dr. Alan Whitehead, supported by John Austin, Lorely Burt, Colin Challen, Mr. David Chaytor, Mr. David Drew, Dr. Ian Gibson, Julia Goldsworthy, Chris Huhne, Alan Simpson, David Taylor and Mr. Mike Weir, presented a Bill to make further provision in relation to microgeneration; to promote local energy provision and energy efficiency; and for connected purposes.: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 19 October, and to be printed. [Bill 155].

Fixed Term Parliaments

David Howarth, supported by Mr. David Heath, Simon Hughes, Chris Huhne, Danny Alexander, Lynne Featherstone, Paul Rowen, Mr. Paul Burstow, Mr. Nick Clegg and Norman Baker, presented a Bill to fix the date of the next general election and all subsequent general elections; to forbid the dissolution of Parliament otherwise than in accordance with this Act; to allow the House of Commons to change the day of the week on which a general election is held; and for connected purposes.: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 19 October, and to be printed. [Bill 157].

Points of Order

Bill Wiggin: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. While reading my  Hansard this morning, I realised that the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, the hon. Member for Halton (Derek Twigg), in summing up last night's debate, said that I had got my figures wrong when I told him that only 3 per cent. of lamb served to our troops is actually British. He said that it was 13 per cent. Whoever is right

Mr. Speaker: Order. I cannot allow the hon. Gentleman to continue. This is a matter of debate and rebuttal; it is not a point of order. It took place during a debate, and the hon. Gentleman should find an opportunity to rebut the case that the Under-Secretary made.

Bill Wiggin: It was his answer.

Mr. Speaker: Even if it was his answer, it is not a matter for me.

Graham Stuart: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. The Secretary of State for Health has now on two occasions accused me of failing to mention the new community hospital that will be built in Beverley, even though that hospital is only at the stage of putting in a bid to the strategic health authority, and therefore has no certainty of funding whatsoever. I wonder whether you could advise me, Mr. Speaker, on how I could get confirmation from the Secretary of State that it will be funded, or on how I can ask him not to mislead the House and the nation by suggesting it is going ahead.

Mr. Speaker: The Secretary of State would not mislead the House, nor would any other Member. If the hon. Gentleman comes to the Chair on a quiet occasion, I will tell him how to go about these things.

Opposition Day
	  
	[19th Allotted day]

Department for Children, Schools and Families

Mr. Speaker: We now come to the first debate on the Opposition motions. I inform the House that I have selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.

Michael Gove: I beg to move,
	That this House notes with concern the fact that fewer than half the nation's schools are good according to the measure preferred by Ministers, that 40 per cent. of children leave primary school without having reached the standard in reading, writing and arithmetic demanded by the Government and that more than a million young people are not in education, employment or training; and therefore calls for an improvement in the leadership and culture of the Department for Children, Schools and Families to make it a stronger and more effective voice for better education.
	May I say what a pleasure it is to see the Secretary of State in his place? Having read the newspapers last week, it is something of a surprise that he is here with us today because in an interview with  The  Sunday Telegraph just a fortnight agohow long ago that must seem he boasted proudly:
	I...opened the new campaign office in my constituency and told my local party it is important we're on a general election footing.
	Now that the Prime Minister has shot himself in his general election footing, I am glad that we can get back to debating the issues. However, may I congratulate the Secretary of State on something? That campaign office must be the one building officially opened by a member of the Government this year where the Minister was actually present and the building was genuinely new.
	May I also congratulate the Secretary of State on something else? I was intrigued by his speech to the Labour party conference, where he made so much of where some of my colleagues went to school. I turned to Who's Who to see where he might have been educated, presuming it was a properly inclusive sort of place. But imagine my surprise when I saw that no schoolprimary or secondarywas listed. I know that when the Secretary of State was growing up in Nottinghamfine town that it isa very good independent boys school there sent many of its lads to Oxbridge. But in the Secretary of State's entrypenned of course, I presume, by himselfthe first establishment mentioned is Keble college, Oxford, where I read he got a first in philosophy, politics and economics. What an amazing achievement: a first at Oxford without having been to any primary or secondary school. All I can say is what everyone in the Labour party is saying: what a phenomenon.
	It is a pity, however, that I cannot congratulate the Secretary of State on more, but the news from his Department during the past few months has been grim. For our youngest school children, just starting out in life, the education system is flatlining. The proportion of students achieving level 2 in maths and reading at key stage 1 is exactly the same as in 2002.

Sarah McCarthy-Fry: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Michael Gove: No. Writing results have declined from 86 per cent. to 80 per cent. since 2002 and are now at their lowest level for a decade. That is a failure to support the youngest. For children at the end of primary school, making the transition from seven years of education under this Government to the testing environment of secondary school, the Government are also failing. Nearly half of children are unable to read write or add up properly at age 11: a failure to prepare a whole generation.
	For young people preparing to meet the challenge of a changing world of work, this Government have failed to deliver on the basics. The number of students getting five good passes at GCSE, including English, maths, science and a modern language, is now 25 per cent. of the total, down since 1997: a failure to equip the young for a world of rapid change.  [ Interruption. ] I notice that the hon. Member for Dudley, North (Mr. Austin) is monosyllabic; he is capable of uttering only one word. If he would care to make an intervention, I shall be delighted to hear it.  [ Interruption. ]

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. We are debating serious matters today. We must not have continual interventions from a sedentary position [ Interruption. ] Order. From either side of the House.

Michael Gove: I am grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

John Spellar: On a point of order, I was wondering whether the hon. Gentleman will take interventions from a standing position.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Whether or not Members addressing the House take interventions is entirely a matter for them.

Michael Gove: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I look forward to taking interventions in just one moment, including from the right hon. Member for Warley (Mr. Spellar).

Sarah McCarthy-Fry: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Michael Gove: I will come back to the hon. Lady in just one second because it is important that she realises the scale of this Government's failure.
	We now have the tragedy of more than a million young people not in employment, education or training: wasted talent let down by a system this Government failed to reform. Ministers, and ambitious Back Benchers, cannot deny the scale of this failure, for one of their own has acknowledged it. According to Lord Adonis, a Minister in the Secretary of State's Department, a quarter of secondary schools in this country are wasting pupils' talents. Some 800,000 pupils are in schools that, according to Ministers, are simply unacceptable. As Mrs. Alastair Campbell wrote in  The Guardian this week:
	With friends like Lord Adonis, Ed Balls and Gordon Brown don't need enemies.
	How fortunate for the Secretary of State that, after last week, no one else in the Labour party is at all unhappy with him.

Sarah McCarthy-Fry: I thank the hon. Gentleman for eventually giving way. Last year, my local education authority was the second most improved at key stage 2 in English and maths. The children and the teachers are proud of themselves. Would the hon. Gentleman have me tell them that they are failures?

Michael Gove: I certainly would not. I am happy to congratulate teachers and pupils. Ministers are the people who have been failingthey are incapable of securing results. How can anyone be complacent about education in this country when 43 per cent. of young children leave primary school incapable of reading, writing or adding up properly? Labour Members might consider that good enough, but millions of parents and I are not satisfied.

Anne Snelgrove: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Michael Gove: Perhaps we will hear more complacency from the hon. Lady.

Anne Snelgrove: Is not the hon. Gentleman aware that 100,000 more 11-year-olds attain level 4 in maths now than in 1997?

Michael Gove: As I said, 40 per cent. of children leave school incapable of reading, writing or adding up properly. Since the hon. Lady mentioned mathematics, is it not a scandal that fewer than half the people who teach it in secondary schools have a degree in the subject? After 10 years of massive investment, there is still a failure to provide the teaching that we need. There is complacency among Labour Members and a desire for change among Conservative Members.

Jim Knight: The hon. Gentleman is strong on statistics for where we are now. Would he like to rattle off those for where we were in 1997 after 18 years under the Tories?

Michael Gove: As I have already pointed out, fewer people are getting five good passes in good GCSEs, including maths, science, a modern language and English, now than in 1997. As the Minister knows, the Office for National Statistics has pointed out that productivity in education has fallen under the Government. Again, there is complacency among Labour Members and an agenda for change in the Conservative party.
	I mentioned Lord Adonis, the Minister's colleague, whom he failed to defend at the Dispatch Box. I am sure that full notice of that will be taken at the other end of the Building. Although Lord Adonis may be more candid than prudent, the Secretary of State should be grateful to him because his honesty emphasises the need for genuine reform to improve our education system. It also creates an opportunity for the Secretary of State to live up to his noble Friend's high hopes and prove himself to be a genuine reformer.
	When the Secretary of State first appeared at the Dispatch Box a few months ago, we offered to work with him and with the Liberal Democrats to advance reform. Since then, I have been encouraged and heartened by the Liberal Democrat leadership's bravery in embracing greater choice and control for parents and moving away from a defence of producer interests. The hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Laws) deserves credit. I am sure that he will give me none in his speech, but I quite understand. Given his party's poll ratings and his position as leader of his party's sensible tendency, he has to put up a pretence of anti-Tory feeling. We shall not hold it against him.
	However, while there has been a movement towards consensus around genuine reform from the Liberal Democrats, there has been the opposite from the Secretary of State. Far from moving forward, he has gone back; far from modernising, he is retreating. Way back in 2005, when the right hon. Member for Bolton, West (Ruth Kelly) was Secretary of State for Education and Skills, the then Prime Minister wrote a preface to the Government's education White Paper. For those on the Labour Benches who cannot remember him, he was a chap by the name of Blair. Sadly for them, he is no longer in the House and is therefore incapable of filling the great clunking vacuum at the top.

Angela Smith: I welcome the hon. Gentleman's commitment to reform. Does he favour the support from part of the Conservative party for the reintroduction of grammar schools?

Michael Gove: I have no idea from where on earth the hon. Lady gets that idea. We support good schools, wherever they exist in the state system, and oppose the Secretary of State's attempt to undermine them. Wherever there are good schools, we will back them rather than undermine them for party political reasons. We are not selective about championing excellence.
	In his preface to the education White Paper, the former right hon. Member for Sedgefield argued that,
	reforms must build on the freedoms that schools have increasingly received, but extend them radically. We must put parents in the driving seat for change and to underpin this change, the local authority must move from being a provider of education to being its local commissioner and the champion of parent choice.
	He wanted
	genuinely independent schools in the state sector.
	I could not put it better myself. The case for reform is clear, urgent, modern and rejected by the Secretary of State.
	In his first statement to the House, the Secretary of State slammed the brakes on reform. Academies were told that they could not open if Labour local councillors wanted to deny parents that choice. Far from being built on, freedoms were further restricted. New academies were told that innovation would be stifled and that they would have to follow a much more restricted curriculum. Since then, he has moved backwards further and faster. In his speech to the Labour party conference, he played to the left-wing gallery, making it clear that the educational establishment would stifle innovation, encouraging Labour LEAs to take an even bigger role in interfering in schools and slamming the door on genuine independence for new state schools and genuine choice and control for parents.
	The Secretary of State cannot provide the change that the country needs because he has made himself a prisoner of the forces of educational conservatism. He has even fallen back on the lamest mantra of them alla line so hackneyed that even the Prime Minister felt he had to abandon it as too threadbare a clich. The Secretary of State said that he believes in standards not structures, but, as Tony Blair was forced to concede,
	I shifted from saying 'it's standards not structures' to realising that school structures... affect standards.
	That is the truth that the Secretary of State denies, and why he is doomed to fail.
	What makes the failure worse is that, at the same time as the Secretary of State thwarts any chance of structural reform, he fails to drive though a genuine improvement in standards. Indeed, he does the opposite. Far from using every lever at his disposal to insist on rigour and excellence, he has been afraid to take on the establishment that presides over mush and muddle in our curriculum.
	On the Secretary of State's watch, we have been told that children should have five-minute lessons because they cannot pay attention for longer. His bureaucrats said that children should mark each other's work because that is more liberating and his people took Churchill out of the curriculum because he was no longer considered relevant to today's children. Our most courageous Prime Minister no longer relevant? I suppose I can understand why this Government would want him written out of history. What happened only when we objected to the changenot before? The Secretary of State rang round the newspapers, shifted the blame on to his officials, said that he was not consulted and promised to change course not, I think, your finest hour, Secretary of State.
	A Secretary of State who was determined to drive up standards would put rigour back in the curriculum and give children the chance to take pride in our national story. However, under this Secretary of State, there has been a refusal to show any courage in taking on the entrenched interests who stand in the way of excellence. I fear that he has been interested in only low partisan politics and shallow tactical positioning.
	We have had no leadership on reform or standards and no honesty about funding. Only yesterday, the Chancellor of the Exchequer failed to level with us in his pre-Budget reporta document that would earn a fail in any examination for being copied from someone else's work. We were promised an extra 250,000 on personalised learning for every pupil, but that amounts to only 34 for every school studentjust enough to buy a copy of Courage by Gordon Brown and pay for 20 minutes of teaching time. With that book and only 20 minutes, one could probably help any class learn the meaning of hubris.

Tom Levitt: rose

Michael Gove: Speaking of hubris

Tom Levitt: The hon. Gentleman mentioned the pre-Budget report and the comprehensive spending review. Is he defending Tory party policy of putting 2 billion into the hands of 9,000 of the country's richest families rather than investing it in health and education, as the Government will?

Michael Gove: Is the hon. Gentleman in the right debate? We are discussing education, not reading out tired, photocopied lines from the Labour Whips Office, which will not save him in High Peak. He should start campaigning for better education instead of trying to curry favour with the leadershipit will not help him. We have already been promised capital funding for schools, in the Building Schools for the Future programme, but so far only 14 of the promised 100 new buildings have materialised. The rest are just not there. They exist only in Ministers' imaginations and in Labour party press releasesa bit like photographs of the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport.

Barry Sheerman: rose

Michael Gove: And talking of ghostly images.

Barry Sheerman: The Select Committee on Education and Skills recently issued a report on the sustainable school, which deals with Building Schools for the Future. We applauded the Government's slowing down of Building Schools for the Future, because the process needs full consultation with the school if we are going to get the schools right. We said clearly that we much preferred the delay, so that local communities, the students and teachers could participate in the process of designing their own schools. We get good schools that way. The hon. Gentleman should please not make any easy assumptions without reading the report.

Michael Gove: I am glad to see that the ghost of education policy past has now become the spirit of fearless truth, in pointing out that the Government have failed to deliver on time and that it is time they thought again. I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman's candour in at last finding the courage, valuable virtue as it is, to criticise the Government.
	To add insult to injury on funding, the Government are now clawing back money with a retrospective levy that plunders the balances of good schools to fund their own agenda. Sharp practice and hypocrisy, excellence penalised and central control stifling good practicea perfect snapshot of Labour's attitude to education. So no progress on structural reform, no bravery on standards, no honesty on fundingwhat does that leave as the Balls agenda? Naked, narrow partisanship.
	In an interview that the Secretary of State gave to the  New Statesman in 2006, when he was still just a humble Back Bencherwell, a Back Bencher anywayhe explained why he disliked more independence for schools, distrusted the reform agenda and disagreed with the stewardship of the Department for Education and Skills under the right hon. Member for Bolton, West. What was needed, he said, was to
	get back to a clear dividing line on education policy
	not constructive reform, not a consensus for change, not children first, but division as our future.
	Since that time, the Secretary of State has been as good as his word. Conservatives and Liberal Democrats now agree on the need for greater parental choice and control. Even the right hon. Member for Darlington (Mr. Milburn), the man who was campaign co-ordinator the last time Labour actually won an election, now agrees with us. Modernisers in every party now champion the case for greater parental control. There is a growing consensus for change, but the Secretary of State wants to divide and just says no.
	There is another consensus as well. All three parties were agreed that a pointless assault on existing good schools was a distraction from the key issue of our time, improving education for the most disadvantaged and for those in failing schools. But what has happened under this Secretary of State? On SaturdayI wonder why it was thenthe press were briefed by his Department:
	Labour wants to reignite the political row over selective education by making it easier to force the closure of...local grammar schools.
	How cynical can one get? When their judgement was found wanting, their egotism backfiring and their hubristic plans imploding, what do these Ministers do? They try to reignite a political row, try to sow division and try to shut down good schools. Instead of learning from what makes schools successful and arguing for the adoption of appropriate policies across the state sector, as we have, with our comprehensively excellent campaign, they prefer to play silly political games and abdicate their responsibility to govern in the whole national interest. They prefer the easy course of pursuing class war to the hard work of securing improvements in every classroom.
	But then, that is all of a piece with the cynicism that the Secretary of State has brought to his office. Invited on the radio to discuss our children's future, all he was really interested in was his clique's future. He talked of election timing and mused on where the gamble would be, treating the serious business of government as though it were a casino game in which they could treat people as mere counters to be shoved around at their convenience. But when the chips were down, the Government folded. They were tried and found wanting, tested and found hollow, totally incapable of being trusted any more. It is time for real change that puts pupils and parents first. It is time for the Conservative agenda.

Edward Balls: I beg to move, To leave out from House to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:
	'commends the real and substantial improvements achieved over the past decade in educational standards and welcomes the Government's commitment to a world class education for all; applauds the unprecedented investment in education over this period, so that per pupil revenue spending has increased nationally by 1,840 per pupil (66 per cent.) in real terms between 1997-98 and 2007-08 and that by 2010-11 there will have been a seven fold increase in real terms in capital investment since 1996-97; acknowledges the proportion of pupils achieving the required standard in English at age 11 increased from 63 per cent. in 1997 to 80 per cent. in 2007 and in maths from 62 per cent. to 77 per cent.; further acknowledges that the proportion of pupils achieving five good GCSEs (at A*-C grades) increased from 45.1 per cent. in 1997 to 58.5 per cent. in 2006 and from just 35.6 per cent. to 45.3 per cent. for those achieving five good GCSEs including English and maths; notes that in 1997 there were 616 schools where less than 25 per cent. of pupils achieved five good GCSEs and that this number fell to 47 in 2006; welcomes the proposal to raise the participation age for education or training to 18 years; further welcomes the launch of the first five Diplomas as a key step towards this objective; and further commends the 10 Year Youth Plan and the creation of the Department for Children, Schools and Families, bringing together strategic leadership for all services to drive up standards, tackle poverty and ensure all children and young people have a safe, secure and happy childhood.'.
	May I say that it is a great pleasure to debate the track record of the Department for Children, Schools and Families, just three months after it was established in July? Notwithstanding today's Opposition motion, which I shall come to later, or the rather Punch and Judy, pugnacious speech that the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) gave, I welcome the courteous and serious way in which he and the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Laws) have taken up their new shadow responsibilities since July and the support that they have given the new Department. I am grateful to them for the proper and helpful discussions that we have had over the complex issues around safeguarding and the work of Sir Roger Singleton in recent months. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Surrey Heath for the honest and mature way in which he praised the achievements of our A-level students this summer, in marked contrast with previous shadow Ministers.
	I also welcome the hon. Gentleman's support for our new independent standards regulator, which I announced two weeks ago. I also welcome his blessing for the review of speech and language therapy being led, with his full support, by our mutual friend, the hon. Member for Buckingham (John Bercow). So despite today's motion, I am pleased to stand across the Dispatch Box from the hon. Member for Surrey Heath. In spite of our differences, it is my hope that we can make more progress in the coming months to forge a deeper and wider consensus on what needs to be done to give every child the best start in life and to give every young person the chance to fulfil their potential.
	Just three months after the Department was first established, I hope that the hon. Member for Surrey Heath and hon. Members on all sides of the House can agree that we have made some real progress. Since July we have welcomed the best key stage 2, GCSE and A-level results ever; we have expanded personalised learning and launched Every Child a Writer to help children in primary schools who are falling behind; we have reformed the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority to establish a new independent standards regulator; we have raised the bar on standards for discipline and introduced new powers for head teachers to tackle truancy and bullying; we have signed up 12 additional universities to get involved in sponsoring academies; we have opened our first 30 trust schools; we have launched our first five new diplomas; we have set out a 10-year plan to transform youth services; we have introduced new standards for school meals and more hours of school sports; and we have started a national children's plan consultation. The Department is showing that it is a strong and effective voice not just for better education, but for every child and parent in this country.

Andrew Selous: The Secretary of State has not yet mentioned the families side of his Department. I appreciate that the Department is new and that he is probably going to come on to this, but will he say whether part of his brief will be to support and strengthen family relationships, and in particular to consider the needs of separated families, on which the Department for Work and Pensions is looking to his Department to help with the new information and advice service?

Edward Balls: That was the first serious contribution to this debate from Opposition Members. I am happy to say that we will support all families in this country, whether they are married, single-parent, separated or divorced families. We will never tolerate an approach to supporting family policy that stigmatises or counts as second best those families that are separated, widowed or divorced. That is why we reject the approach to family policy that was set out by Opposition Members earlier this summer.

Rob Marris: When the hon. Member for Surrey Heath was speaking very prettily, taking time off from moonlighting as a journalist, did my right hon. Friend notice that, unlike the hon. Member for South-West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous), with whom I had the pleasure of serving on the Select Committee on Work and Pensions, which dealt with such issues, he never mentioned families at all in either his motion or his speech?

Edward Balls: My hon. Friend is quite right.
	As I have just said, this new Department is a strong and effective voice for education for every child and every parent in this country. And, as the Chancellor confirmed yesterday, the new Department has also secured a further 450 million for the spending review period on top of our budget settlement, which will mean that education spending will rise to record levels and that we will have 21.9 billion of schools investment over the next three years, which will deliver 400 more secondary schools and 675 new primary schools. It will also mean that every school will become an extended school, full details of which are being published this afternoon by my hon. Friend the Minister for Schools and Learners. It will mean more schools capital investment in the next three years than in the entire 18 years of Conservative Government between 1979 and 1997.

David Evennett: I am listening carefully to the Secretary of State, as I did when he had his former job in the Treasury. He has given us a catalogue of what he considers to be the great successes. If there has been so much success, why are so many of our children failing to read and write and failing in maths at the age of 11? If everything is so wonderful, what has gone wrong to allow this to happen?

Edward Balls: I am coming on to that point right now. But before I do, I hope the hon. Gentleman will join me in praising the 700 per cent. increase in capital investment that his local authority will be getting in today's announcement, compared with 1997. I hope he will put out a press release to congratulate us on that.

Peter Luff: Will the Secretary of State give way?

Edward Balls: In a sec.
	As the hon. Member for Surrey Heath said, we should start by agreeing that, despite the substantial progress that we have made, there is still some way to go before our education system can be described as world class. The hon. Gentleman is right to point out that fact today. He is right to point out that 23 per cent. of young people are leaving primary school at 11 without having reached level 4 in maths, that the figure is 33 per cent. for writing, that 40 per cent. are not reaching level 4 in reading, writing and maths at key stage 2, and that too many 16 to 18-year-olds are leaving school and college without proper qualifications. I agree that that is not good enough.
	Putting the debating points to one side, let us go back and look at the history. In 1997, it was not 20 per cent. failing to make the grade in maths; it was 38 per cent. In 1997, it was not 20 per cent. not making the grade in reading, but 33 per cent., and it was not 40 per cent. not making the grade in the three Rs, but 57 per cent. So let us agree that, although we have further to go to be world class, we are going in the right direction and we have made substantial progress from what was a desperate, taxing inheritance.
	I hope the hon. Gentleman will also agree that the reason we have made substantial progress since 1997 is our investment and our reforms. We have 38,000 new teachers and more than 100,000 more teaching assistants, and more than 1,100 new schools have been built rebuilt or refurbished. There has been a 25 per cent. fall in permanent exclusions. Another fact not reflected in the hon. Gentleman's motion is that the number of failing schoolsthose that do not have 25 per cent. of students gaining five good GCSEsis down from 616 in 1997 to just 47 today. I want to go further: I want to get rid of all of them, but the fact is that there were 616 when his party left office, and the figure is now down to 47.

Angela Watkinson: The Secretary of State just touched on the subject of exams, and I wonder whether he shares the concerns of head teachers in my constituency about the quality and consistency of online exam marking. A growing number of actual grades are varying significantly from the predicted grades; this is happening to a worrying degree. Some of the exam boards are now moving to oral online marking. If this situation is not reviewed and monitored, the problem is likely to increase.

Edward Balls: If the hon. Lady goes to the House of Commons Library, she will find that the capital allocation for her local authority area is up 5,000 per cent. since 1997. On the particular point that she has raised, the reform that I have announced in recent weeks to establish an independent standards regulator will give parents and teachers the confidence that the exam boards are doing a good job and that standards are not declining. I will make sure that the standards regulator looks at the precise issue she has raised.

David Chaytor: Was it not significant that the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) failed miserably to cite the figures for the 1997 key stage 2 results? I am delighted that my right hon. Friend has put the record straight. Furthermore, if we are going to have a serious debate on this matter, should we not recognise that simply because a boy or girl does not reach level 4 at key stage 2, it does not mean that they are illiterate? We need a far more considered approach to describing the abilities of children who do not reach level 4.

Edward Balls: My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I think that, outside the Chamber, the hon. Member for Surrey Heath would agree. I have found it is possible to have a serious conversation with him outside, although perhaps not in this debate. Of course it is not the case that a child of that age who does not reach level 4 cannot read, write or do arithmetic, but they are not doing as well as they should be to prepare for going on to secondary school. That is what we want to turn around. It was striking, however, that, despite the intervention of my hon. Friend the Minister for Schools and Learners, the hon. Gentleman failed to acknowledge the progress that has been made since 1997. It is impossible to have a serious, rational debate unless he can acknowledge that we have made substantial progress, although there is much more to be done.

Several hon. Members: rose

Edward Balls: I will not give way. I want to make some more progress, then I will take an intervention.
	Let us acknowledge that there has been a transformation of investment and reform, and that that reform has been accelerated by me in recent months and not been set back. I welcome the support of the hon. Member for Surrey Heath for our programme of catch-up tuition for those falling behind in writing and maths, but I say to him that if he wants a serious debate on educational reform, he needs to monitor a little more closely the standard of the Leader of the Opposition's articles on education policy before they are submitted. The proposal by the hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron)[Hon. Members: Right hon.] The proposal by the right hon. Member for Witney a few weeks ago that children not making the grade at 11 should be held back for an extra year in what would soon become overcrowded primary school classrooms was roundly condemned by head teachers and parents alike because it just would not work. Rarely have I seen a policy announcement fall apart so quickly under scrutiny. It is the Leader of the Opposition who needs a little extra help with his writing.

Philip Davies: Over the summer recess, I spent a week in one of my comprehensive schools shadowing the teachers. It is a very good school, with very high standards and excellent teaching[Hon. Members: A comprehensive school?] Yes, it is a comprehensive school. And yet, there were at least half a dozen year 7 pupilsthey had just started secondary schoolin one of the maths lessons who did not know the difference between an odd number and an even number. My right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) has made some practical suggestions for how we might avoid children going on to secondary school in that state. The Secretary of State is new in his post and he must be fizzing with ideas. How will he deal with this problem? How are we going to stop children going to secondary school not knowing the difference between an odd number and an even number?

Edward Balls: I apologise to the hon. Gentleman: for him, we have managed only a 308 per cent. increase in capital allocation over the next few years, compared with 1997. I say to him that if we are serious about educational reform, we must intervene early through Every Child a Reader, Every Child Counts and our new Every Child a Writer programme. We must do this when children are five, six and seven years old to stop them falling behind. The proposal that we should say to parents or teachers after the key stage 2 results that we are going to keep their children back in primary school for another year was laughed at by parents, teachers and head teachers alike. It was a piece of spin with no substance behind it, and it was not the only proposal that failed that test.
	While the hon. Member for Surrey Heath is looking at that proposal, he should also look at the proposal by the right hon. Member for Witney to abolish appeals for exclusions. He needs to remind the right hon. Gentleman that independent appeals were introduced by the previous Conservative Government, and that last year only 130 of 9,170 exclusions were overturned, which is less than 1.5 per cent. He should also remind the right hon. Gentleman that if independent appeals were abolished, hundreds and possibly thousands of head teachers would be forced by a Conservative Government to defend their decisions in the courts. That would be no way to back head teachers.

Graham Stuart: Is it true that a pupil in Manchester who was found to be carrying a knife last year was ordered to be returned to the school when the matter went to appeal?

Edward Balls: I think that the claim of the right hon. Member for Witney that that was the case has been rejected as incorrect by the school and its governors, so the hon. Gentleman should look at his facts before making those sort of allegations in this House.

David Laws: The Secretary of State said a moment ago, in spite of claims by the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove), that he is accelerating the pace of reform in his Department, so may I test him on that point? Is the Department's policy still the same as it was in the Blairite manifesto of 2005to make all secondary schools independent specialist schools? Does that remain the policy?

Edward Balls: As the hon. Gentleman knows, our policy is to ensure that every secondary school is a specialist school, an academy or a trust. That is my policy and I back more independence for governing bodies. Of course that is the case, and I want to accelerate the academies programme. What I have done is abolish the 2 million entry fee and encourage universities and high-performing public sector organisations to come in and support academies. I am also very pleased to say that local government leadersLabour, Tory and Liberalhave been coming forward to propose academies. As for the idea that I should reject such proposals because, by definition, they come from local government, I have never heard such an anti-local government statement before. It is absolutely ridiculous.

David Laws: I am grateful to the Secretary of State, who I think is clarifying the position, but I am not quite sure why he finds it so difficult to repeat the words that appeared in his manifesto of 2005:
	We want all secondary schools to be independent specialist schools.
	Is that still the Department's policy?

Edward Balls: Of course I stand entirely by the manifesto on which we fought the election.  [Interruption.] It would be worth checking whether the Leader of the Opposition is also supporting his current policy on grammar schools. After all, the hon. Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts) thought he had the Conservative leader right behind him, only to be stabbed in the back in the reshuffle. Anyone who thinks that I am scaremongering might like to check last week's speech to the Tory conference fringe by the Leader of the Opposition's university chum and putative Mayor of London, the hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Johnson), in which he called for a return toand I can quote him exactlygood, old-fashioned academic selection. Good old Boris!
	I have to say to the hon. Member for Surrey Heath that if he is genuine in his support for our mission to drive up standards for all children and to give every child the best possible start in life and if he really wants to reduce the number of young people not in education or in training after 16, he must agree to back our plans to increase spending per pupil in state schools to today's private school level and to raise the education leaving age to 18.

Several hon. Members: rose

Edward Balls: I have already given way several times.
	We know that this is where the right hon. Member for Witney and the Conservatives get into difficulties because they cannot match those commitments and cannot guarantee the funding to pay for them. The Conservative party's commitment to substantial tax cuts for the few and what the Leader of the Opposition called dramatically lower public spending mean that the Opposition cannot match our spending or our commitment to world-class education.

Peter Luff: In an attempt to build a spirit of consensus, I welcome the fact that the Government have used the most benign economic conditions of any post-war Government to increase expenditure on educationjust as any other Government would have done. Why is it, however, that some local education authorities such as Worcestershire have not shared in that increase and have fallen further and further below the national average per pupil spend?

Edward Balls: I have to tell the hon. Gentleman that over the past 10 years, education spending has risen by 5 per cent. a year in real terms. Between 1979 and 1997, it rose by only 1.4 per cent. a year, so it is clear that when the Conservative Government were in power, they failed to achieve their objectives [Interruption]despite all the lobbying.

Julie Kirkbride: rose

Peter Luff: rose

Edward Balls: No, I will not give way. I had reached the point in my speech where I was about to explain why there is no consensus on education policy in this country. The reason is that there is no consensus on tax and spending policy. Yesterday in this Chamber, we saw a shadow Chancellor who was exposed in the full view of national scrutiny for making tax-cut promises that he cannot afford, for being left with a 2 billion black hole and for getting his sums wrong. Before Opposition Members lecture me on our national numeracy strategy, I suggest that they draw up a strategy to improve the numeracy of their own Front Benchers. Before running down the achievements of our Every Child Counts programme, they need to ensure that they have a shadow Chancellor who can count. As we all know, the shadow Chancellor's sums simply do not add up and he has not reached the required standard to make progress. It is the shadow Chancellor who needs extra help and one-to-one tuition and it is the black hole in his plans that fatally undermines Tory education policy.

Several hon. Members: rose

Edward Balls: No, I am not giving way.
	While the Conservative party remains committed to tax cuts for the wealthiest few, which it cannot afford, every parent in this country will know that our schools would not be safe in its hands, that progress on standards would be put at risk and that economic stability would be undermined. Only last week, at the Conservative conference, the hon. Member for Surrey Heath slammed what he called a trendy 1960s culture of liberal teaching, but his problem is that his party remains stuck in a 1980s culture of fiscal irresponsibility and tax cuts for the few, which would mean spending cuts that would hit standards in our schools and set back our children's future. It is the hon. Gentleman's party that needs a culture change and his party that needs to examine its leadership. Until it does so, there will be no consensus on education policy in this House.

David Laws: I am pleased to take part in this important debatethe first full-scale debate on the new Department and its responsibilities. I hope that the Minister for Schools and Learners will sum up and that he will be able to explain the apparent contradiction between the Secretary of State's position today in respect of the Labour party manifesto and the Department's own recent position.
	The manifesto, as the Secretary of State was kind enough to confirm and support, was very clear about the Government's commitment to making all secondary schools independent specialist schools. Despite that, the most recent departmental answer from the Minister for Schools and Learners stated:
	It is not this Government's policy to make all secondary schools independent specialist schools.[ Official Report, 23 July 2007; Vol. 463, c. 889W.]
	There appears to be a 180 contradiction between the Blairite manifesto on which Labour Front Benchers stood and the position that the Department has now taken. Perhaps in the hours between now and the end of the debate, the Minister will be able to explain that contradiction.
	We are happy to support the motion for the reasons suggested by both the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) and, in fairness, the Secretary of State. There are clearly enormous deficiencies in our education system todaynotwithstanding any improvements over recent yearswhich are quite unlike those in many other advanced countries that do not have our enormous under-achievement. We do not support the motion without qualification, however, as we would have liked the hon. Member for Surrey Heath to put in a little more on policy issues at the end of it. I appreciate that with the magpie nature of the present Administration, he may have feared that by the time he sat down, the Secretary of State might not only have stolen his homework but copied it out and handed it in. Perhaps that explains the absence of any proposals that could have been nabbed by the end of the Session.
	I also hope that the last sub-sentence of the motion does not indicate the tendency on the part of the Government and the Prime Minister to think that educational achievement and delivery in the public sector is dependent on Government Departments rather than on individual schools and other units that deliver the improvements. We will not deal with the major issues facing children in this country simply on the basis of letters sent out over the summer by the Secretary of State or improvements in leadership in the Department.
	Inevitably, the debate has so far focused mainly on the schools element of the children, schools and families agenda. In winding up the debate, will the Minister for Schools and Learners therefore touch on some of the other important elements for which his Department has responsibility, as I presume that the rationale for bringing together the Department was to cover all children's issues?
	Despite the Secretary of State's speech betraying to a large extent his origins in the Treasury, given its focus on public expenditure and other matters, we have not heard much so far about the issue of child poverty and its centrality to the Government's objectives. The pre-Budget and spending statement yesterday included some large items of expenditure and revenue-raising, on inheritance tax and non-domicile tax, and the Chancellor gave the impression that something significant was happening on child poverty. But, as ever, the documents show an enormous gap between what the Government say they are doing on the child poverty agenda this year, next year and the year after, and what they are actually doing. The additional expenditure in the pre-Budget and spending statement amounts only to about 30 million in the coming year and 60 million beyond that. Will the Minister therefore indicate to what extent the Government retain a genuine commitment to meet the 2010 child poverty target, which the current policy steps do not come close to matching?
	Will the Minister also confirm which Department is taking a lead on the issue? Many of those who are concerned about the children's agenda, particularly the child poverty lobby, are worried about the apparent lack of a lead Department on child poverty. In the documents released with the spending review and the pre-Budget report yesterday, I read that the Treasury is now taking a lead role on the matter. How will the Department for Work and Pensions and the Department for Children, Schools and Families integrate with the Treasury?

Angela Smith: In Sheffield, the capital investment budget for the next three years is more than 80 million, which is a long way from the single figure investment in 1996 for the whole city. Does the hon. Gentleman not acknowledge that investment in our schools and creating decent places for children to learn in are an important part of raising attainment and tackling poverty?

David Laws: I am grateful for the hon. Lady's point, which takes me on to the next section of my speech: funding issues. Before I address that question, I remind the Minister that we seek clarification of which Department is taking the lead on child poverty, and how his Department will work with that lead Department.
	I accept the hon. Lady's point that capital expenditure in schools has been transformed since 1997, and there is not a head teacher in the country who would say anything else. Again, however, there is a gap between the Government's spin on the issue and the reality. We heard from the Chancellor in his statement yesterday that the additional capital expenditure would mean a new primary school in every local area. My heart leapt at the possibility that south Somerset or perhaps even Yeovil might benefit. Only when we look at the detail of the statement do we discover that local area, for me, means Somerset. Therefore, out of the 250 schools, Somerset will get one additional one.

Jim Knight: rose

David Laws: Is the Minister going to announce that he has Yeovil in mind?

Jim Knight: I could talk about the 490 per cent. increase that Somerset will have received by the end of the spending period, compared with 1997, or the 88.6 million that that represents over the period. Is the new building that I am about to open in Yeovil in a few weeks reality or spin?

David Laws: My point was about the statement made yesterday, and I think that the Minister is agreeing with me by trying to shift the ground of the debate. One new primary school in each county is not quite the same as one in every local area. He is always welcome in my constituency, both to open new schoolsI did not appreciate that he was coming, and I hope that he was going to give me good notice; he has nowand at other major establishments. The Secretary of State would also be more than welcome.
	The Secretary of State, who has been intimately involved in the Treasury and public expenditure matters for a long period, will want to appreciate that although funding has seen an enormous step change since 1997or, more accurately, 1999, but I will not revisit earlier argumentswhich has led to a big improvement in school funding, as all head teachers recognise, the schools budget is now entering a much tougher period. The figures for the rate of increase in the schools budget were tweaked a little yesterday, and those of us who are suspicious about such matters will notice that they were increased to the extent of the last decimal point to allow the Government just about to deliver on their pledge to increase the share of education spending in GDPwe were dangerously close to a period in which that would contract. Education expenditure will, none the less, grow far less rapidlyperhaps half as rapidly as it has since 1999which will lead to a much tougher position for schools, especially in catering for the pay increases that will necessarily take place.
	We have also had the rather ludicrous and meaningless pledge from the former Chancellor, now the Prime Minister, on schools fundingto increase the level of per pupil funding in the state sector to that in private schools. That sounded fantastic until many of us discovered in the small print that it meant that the Government would manage in 2021 or 2022 to get state school per pupil expenditure to the level of that in the private sector in 2006, or 2005. At virtually all times in the history of our country, it must have been the case that those who were reliant only on the state sector were funded at the same level as those in the private sector 20 years earlier.  [Interruption.] The Secretary of State mutters from a sedentary position. If he wants to correct me, I shall give way, but my understanding is that the Government are saying that it will take until 2021 for pupils in the maintained sector to have the same level of real funding as the private sector had in 2005-06. That is the rather meaningless pledge that they made.
	I make that point not only to demonstrate the weakness of the commitment but to urge a policy on the Secretary of State and the Minister. The Secretary of State has talked a lot about consensus today, and it might be possible to have some consensus about how school funding should be focused in the years ahead when the system has less money. There is quite a lot of magpie-ism in politics today, because three or four years ago my party proposed a pupil premium that would target the most deprived pupils and give them additional money that would follow them through the school system. Over the summer, the Conservative public services working group report proposed something initially called an advantage premium, which sounded quite like the pupil premium but was nothing like as generous in the details. Not only has the hon. Member for Surrey Heath had the good sense to try to pinch our policy, but he has shifted the name of his policy from advantage premium to pupil premium. I assume that he is aligning himself completely with Liberal Democrat policy on the matter.

Michael Gove: I hate to make the discussion an incestuous love-in between the two Opposition parties and exclude the Secretary of State, but I fear that he is excluded, because the policy in which we believe is indeed close to the hon. Gentleman's, to that outlined by Professor Julian Le Grand, who advised the former Prime Ministerwe used to have a reforming Prime Minister on educationand to that outlined by the right hon. Member for Darlington (Mr. Milburn) after he resigned from the Cabinet. There is a great deal of consensus; it is a pity that the Government are not part of it.

David Laws: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that comment, but before the love-in goes too far, I want to observe that I am not sure that his policy is quite the same as ours if it is the same as it was in the working group, which published its work over the summer months. My understanding of the Conservative party's proposal is that extra funding for needy pupils would be supplied on the basis of pupils in failing schools. That would be a much smaller number than we have in mind and also appears to be funded by redirecting other moneys in the budget.

Graham Stuart: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that as well as having a pupil premium, the additional money that goes into an area because of increased deprivation should come with a pupil if he or she crosses a boundaryfor example, when a pupil in Hull, near my constituency, comes to an East Riding school? Although the Secretary of State is not listening, I hope he will look again at the need to ensure that money that has been properly attributed to a pupil travels with that pupil if he or she moves out of the local authority area in which he or she resides.

David Laws: I am sure that is right. I hope that the Government will develop their own policy on that. A deprivation review by the Government is considering how schools and pupils are funded. If the Government do not have any new money, it will be difficult for them to do anything radical, which is why we identified a new source of funding for the pupil premium by taking people out of the tax credit system.
	Although there is a deprivation-related aspect in the existing formula, the way in which it is passed on to schools is opaque and inconsistent. Some schools with a large number of pupils with high levels of needs and deprivation are getting a lot of additional money to help them with the extra challenges involved, but many schools, especially in rural areas and in communities that do not have the deprivation that some of our other communities sadly have, do not have anything like the funding that they need to deal with the serious challenges that they face from pupils with high levels of deprivation, which is closely linked to poor educational performance.

Andrew Gwynne: The hon. Gentleman raises an important point about funding. Why does he think that Stockport metropolitan borough council, one of the local education authorities under his party's control, is so reluctant to spread a greater share of the resources that it has at its disposal to the more socially deprived areas of the borough, such as Reddish?

David Laws: Given that Stockport is a Liberal Democrat-controlled local authority, I am sure it is doing the best that it can with the money given to it by the Government. My argument is that additional sources of funding should go into the pupil premium and that it should target deprivation wherever it is. Given that there appears to be the possibility of a consensus, that the Secretary of State has a review of deprivation-related funding, that his Department is making it an even more explicit policy objective to narrow the gap between pupils with high deprivation characteristics and the rest of the school population, and that the major effect of increasing expenditure in terms of its impact on results seems to be felt by those pupils with high levels of needs and deprivation, I hope he will widen the review to do something a little more ambitious.
	I also hope that in the context of funding, the Secretary of State and Ministers in his Department will continue to do what they have been seeking to do over the past couple of years and address the continuing funding gap between the schools and further education sectors. Some modest progress has been made towards that, but there is still a long way to go.

Andrew Gwynne: I do not wish to press the point too much, but the issue is not that Stockport, a prosperous borough, should have more; it is that Reddish, which is a more socially deprived part of Stockport, should get a greater share of the resources that Stockport has at its disposal. Stockport constantly says that it should have equal funding with Manchester city council and Tameside metropolitan borough council, two more-deprived neighbouring authorities. That is nonsense. Does the hon. Gentleman not agree, however, that Reddish and other socially deprived parts of the borough should get a greater share of Stockport's very generous allocation?

David Laws: As the hon. Gentleman makes his point in a serious way, I will reply in a serious way. He would not expect me to be an expert on the level of per pupil funding in Reddish, but if he and his colleagues adopt the policy that I am trying to persuade them to adopt in their magpie-type mode, it would deal with the problems that concern him.

Angela Smith: The hon. Gentleman seems to be arguing for an overall increase in the Department's budget nationally. How would his party pay for that?

David Laws: We published proposals on that in July. We would take more people who are higher up the income distribution scale out of the tax credit system. The tax credit system is ludicrous. Tax credits are designed to help those in the greatest need, yet they go to people 90 per cent. up the income distribution scale. I am sorry to say that our proposals have not been given enough publicity to attract the hon. Lady's attention. I am happy to send them to her. Our proposal would take money, within a tight and constrained public expenditure round, from those people who should not be the priority of a Labour Government and give it to those who should be in terms of educational opportunities.

Angela Smith: rose

David Laws: I shall give way to the hon. Lady, assuming that she is about to make a serious point.

Angela Smith: Only to say that there is a big black hole in the hon. Gentleman's spending plans, which would not help children to raise their levels of attainment.

David Laws: I think that the hon. Lady thought up her supplementary question before listening to my answer. I am happy to send her all the documents. If she wants to criticise our proposals on tax credits, that is legitimate, but she cannot claim that there is a black hole, because there is not.
	May I also press the Minister for Schools and Learners to say a little more about standards and structures, which the hon. Member for Surrey Heath touched on? There clearly has been a significant change in Government policy. As the hon. Member for Surrey Heath indicated, in one of his last education speeches the former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, said that
	over time I shifted from saying 'It's standards not structures' to realising that schools structures...affect standards.
	In the Secretary of State's first statement, he turned the situation around and said that it would all be about standards rather than structures. He went back to 1997, 1998 and 1999. That has left people rather baffled about what message the Government are trying to send out.
	Does the Department have a clear and coherent policy on whether it is in favour of reform and changing structures to drive up standards? On the one hand, the message that it is sending out is that there has been a changea break from the Blairite years, more focus on standards, and less obsession with structural change. Indeed, the Minister's reply in July contradicts the Labour party's manifesto position on wanting every maintained secondary school to become an independent school.
	On the other hand, we have all these nods and winks from Ministers to those that they want to keep onside that there are no changes. On the day before the Secretary of State's first statement, an article in the  Financial Times, a reputable newspaper, said that it had been briefed that the academies programme would be cut back and throttled [Interruption.] It was not members of the Conservative party who said that; I fear that it was members of the Secretary of State's Department.
	There are nods and winks to the unions and others indicating that the position is changing; yet when the Secretary of State is challenged on the Floor of the House, he says, No, no, no. We haven't changed anything at all. Are the Government trying to keep the same policy, but pretend to their Back Benchers and others that there is a change? Have we got the old policy, or are we moving to a new policy that goes back to the standards issue?

Edward Balls: Does the hon. Gentleman not recall that in that statement to the House I announced a series of reforms that will mean that we can go faster and have more academies?

David Laws: I do, but I recall a lot of other people telling me at the same time that the messages coming out of the Department, with a nudge and a wink [Interruption.] The power of the hon. Member for Surrey Heath may be great, but it is not that great. It does not extend to some of the people that I have been talking to.
	I think that the Secretary of State is maintaining that there is no change in policy, and he has loyally signed up to the Labour party manifesto position on independent secondary schools, despite the fact that the Minister for Schools and Learners has contradicted him in parliamentary answers.
	I invite the Secretary of State to tell us why he chose, in his very first statement as Secretary of State, to say something about the standards versus structures debate that appears completely to contradict what the former Prime Minister, after his long experience, said was his belief about the way in which the education system should develop.

Edward Balls: I am happy to do so. It is good to have a serious debate about education policy.
	In that statement I announced a series of changes, or reforms. I changed the 2 million funding requirement and the national curriculum requirement. I also said that the goal of structural change was not reform as an end in itself, but that reform was justified when it drove up standards. I believe the academies programme is doing that, which is why I support it.

David Laws: That helps me to some extent, but the fact remains that the Secretary of State chose to say in his very first statement that he was going to put standards before structures. He is bright enougheasily bright enoughto know that what he was doing was contradicting the former Prime Minister. The former Prime Minister would never have said that structural change was an end in itself in which he believed for the sake of it. He said that he wanted structural change because it was the only way of driving up standards without flogging the system from the centre. The Minister for Schools and Learners nods, but the Secretary of State retains his slogan about putting standards before structures, so we are still a bit baffled.
	If the policy is really unchanged, will Ministers make clear today what it is in the academy model about which they are so passionate? Is it simply that the Secretary of State wants to keep various people in the Department and retain the academy model so that he does not appear to be an anti-moderniser, or does he really believe in it?

Edward Balls: It is raising standards.

David Laws: Ah! In that case, my supplementary question to the Secretary of State is this: what aspect of it is raising standards? Is it the flexibility that academies have, or some other aspect of the academy model? And when we have an answer to that question, may we know whether the flexibilities and freedoms that academies have perhapsin the view of the Secretary of Stateused to drive up standards will be extended to other schools or gradually throttled back, as some people, legitimately or illegitimately, fear?
	The Minister pretends not to understand, although he understands very well. I am asking him, when he sums up the debate, to put clearly on the record why he is in favour of academies, whether it is their flexibilities that he welcomes, and whether he agrees with me that if those flexibilities are a good thing they should be extended to more schools.

Edward Balls: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

David Laws: Of course.

Edward Balls: I apologise for intervening on the hon. Gentleman again. I took only two interventions from him, and he has now taken three from me. But if he looks at a leaflet produced by the Newington Liberal Democrats in the summer of 2007, the Newington ward Focus, he will see this quotation from a Liberal Democrat councillor:
	We have seen how the new City of London Academy in Bermondsey and the Academy at Peckham have transformed education in the area with state-of-the-art buildings and facilities.
	There we have a Liberal Democrat explanation of why academies have been driving things forward. I would suggest that leadership and innovation are further reasons for that, but in any event there are real reasons why academies in disadvantaged areas are driving up standards, and that is why I support them. The hon. Gentleman should listen to the substance of what is said by the Liberal Democrats and our party, rather than listening to the spin of the Tories.

David Laws: Now we know what all the extra people whom the Labour party has been hiring in recent weeks have been doing: they have been going around collecting copies of Newington Liberal Democrat Focus leaflets.
	I do not disagree with any of that. I was trying to get the Government's position on the record, but I was also trying to tease out the view of the Secretary of State and his Department on why academies are a good thing, if that is what they really believe. I should also like to hear later whether the Secretary of State wishes the powers and freedoms of academies to be extended to schools.
	The Secretary of State is waving the leaflet. I should be delighted to look at it later, although I see all these things before they are sent out anyway.
	The Secretary of State may wish to intervene on another issue, that of reform of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority and its independence. I am delighted by this further magpie move by the GovernmentI may give credit to the Conservative party on this occasion. It is rare for the pinching process to work in this way, but the hon. Member for Surrey Heath, at least, has claimed that he advocated the policy some time ago. I am delighted to say that my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, West (Stephen Williams) advocated a similar policy in August, and was condemned by the Schools Minister for trying to undermine confidence in the examination system.
	I think it is a good thing that the Government are to seek to make a portion of the QCA more independent. There has been a breakdown of confidence in the examination system in recent years, and this move may have a real effect. Many educational institutions, particularly private schools and high-performing state schools, are considering opting out of the existing qualifications framework altogether. That is worrying, because we risk a return to the days when the Secretary of State and I were at school, when there were different qualifications for people with different abilities. We do not want to discover that the existing qualifications are regarded as second-grade, and only for some schools.
	I do not believe that the Secretary of State has yet published his consultation paper on the independence of part of the QCA. If I have missed it, I apologise. We look forward to playing an active part in the consultation on the independent model that the Secretary of State proposes. I ask him, however, to retain an open mind on whether additional elements of the management of our education system could do with rather less politics, and rather more of the expertise we have seen in some of the other models that the Government cited in the letter that the Secretary of State kindly sent to us on the day of his conference speech, letting us know of the proposed changes to the QCA.
	In paragraph 8 of the letter, the Secretary of State said that
	the Government's approach has been to develop transparent frameworks for decision-making by an accountable body.
	That related to other changes, including the change in the position of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England, one of the policies in which the Secretary of State was particularly involved in 1997. The Secretary of State proceeded to develop the argument, explaining that he sought to do the same in respect of the QCA changes.
	The problem with the changes that the Secretary of State is making is thatas I think he would be the first to admitthey are far more modest than the Monetary Policy Committee changes, which transferred a major area of decision making to a separate body in relation to policy, with overarching strategic control from the Government. As the Secretary of State is honest enough to admit in paragraph 9, the proposal for the QCA, although worthwhile, is indeed far more modestnamely the creation of
	a distinct independent regulator of qualifications and tests.
	Creating a regulator is very different from seeking to establish a greater distance between the decisions of Ministers and decisions about what type of education obtains in every school in the country.
	I believe that all sorts of additional elements could be included in the Secretary of State's independent model which would allow us to engage in more sensible, intelligent, rational debate about the curriculum, and might lead to more independent sampling of pupils over periods of time to judge whether examination standards or pupils are changing. We should also be thinking, at least, about whether not a reformed QCA but the type of education standards authority that we were beginning to discuss when the Secretary of State came along and announced his policy

Edward Balls: A different policy.

David Laws: It is slightly different. I am grateful to the Secretary of State for mentioning that.
	We should think about whether a body of that type could also commission independently work on education standards and how to improve them in schools, in a way that would not leave it to the passing fads espoused by Ministers to establish that this or that particular way of learning was in vogue.
	I do not know whether this applies to the body that the Secretary of State envisages, but I believe that many people in the country may feel that aspects of education policy and the curriculum have been excessively politicised over many years, and thatwithout losing strategic political control and returning to James Callaghan's description, pre-1979, of education as a secret gardenwe should take some of the politics out of the issues. I am not sure whether the Chairman of the Select Committee is hovering, waiting to intervene.

Barry Sheerman: No.

Gerald Kaufman: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I should be grateful if you would tell me what protection Back Benchers have in this debate. The hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) spoke for 21 minutes; my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State spoke for 23 minutes. The hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Laws) has so far spoken for 32 minutes, more than twice the maximum allowed to Back Benchers. Are Back Benchers to be given an opportunity by the Liberal Democrats to speak in the debate?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The right hon. Gentleman will have an opportunity to catch my eye in due course, but I must say that it is incumbent on Front-Bench spokesmen to keep a strict eye on how much time is available for the debate as a whole.

David Laws: I am sure that you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and the right hon. Gentleman are rightalthough I have been excessively generous in giving way to the Secretary of Stateand I shall raise only one further concern about Government education policy before giving other Members a chance to speak.
	Are the Secretary of State and the Minister for Schools and Learners still committed to the harshalmost authoritarianmodel that they seem to have been proposing for the upcoming education Bill of later this year, which will have the worthy aspiration of keeping as many youngsters as possible in education until the age of 18? Is the route that the Government envisage going down of criminal sanctions on both children and parents the right one, or could we not usefully adopt a more entitlement-based route with a greater degree of flexibility about when people take free education? Would that route be not only less authoritarian, but more effective for many of the youngsters who drop out of the education system at 16many of whom are, for a variety of personal reasons, not ready at that stage to engage in the type of activities that the Secretary of State thinks he can oblige them to engage in under powers of criminal imposition?
	I have mentioned a number of the issues that we will want to raise over the weeks and months ahead. Sadly, since the former Chancellor became Prime Minister the Government have lost direction in their long-term thinking not only on economic strategy, but in many areas of public service delivery. There has been a magpie approach of selecting policies from others for short-term political gain. We hope that if the Secretary of State continues that magpie approach, he will do so in respect of some of the serious issues that have been debated today rather than for short-term political effect.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I remind the House that Mr. Speaker has placed a 15-minute limit on Back-Bench speeches. That applies from now on.

Barry Sheerman: When I first saw that there was to be an education debate in the first week after the recess I was delighted, but I became rather depressed when I saw its terms. We all know where certain figures come from, and we all know that figures can be bent or skewedor spun, even. People across the political spectrum whom I respect are angry about the terms of the debate, which feed views that come from the right of the political spectrum, as represented by Politeia, Civitas and the Adam Smith Institute, and which continually denigrate state education in our country.
	I do not think that the hon. Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts) would ever have tabled such a motion, and I am disappointed that we have begun after the recess on this note. I hope that in future the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) will reflect on the fact that it is fine for Members who so wish to conduct themselves in this Chamber as though they were taking part in a student debate in the Oxford Union, but that a clever debate can be held without resorting to rudeness and ridicule. That is not how to try to establish a good relationship across party divides with those of us who care very much about the education sector.
	A new evaluation of Members of Parliament was published this morning in which 5 per cent. were deemed outstanding, 40 per cent. good, 40 per cent. satisfactory, and 10 per cent. inadequate. It appears that 5 per cent. will be put into special measures. There was, of course, no such poll, but if there had been there would be much resentment among Members who were not in the satisfactory or good category.

Anne Main: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Barry Sheerman: No, let me develop my point.
	I talk to head teachers and school staff around the country, and that is the sort of resentment they feel. Many of them remind me of an interview that I had with Ofsted three years ago, in which satisfactory was suddenly deemed not to be satisfactory and instead it was necessary to be deemed good. There is a changing world for schools, and we must remember that it damages them if we constantly drag out statistics that suggest that a high percentage of children are being failed and are not being well served by the education process.
	I know that all sorts of statistics can be produced, but when we carefully examine them some surprising facts can occasionally be discovered, and I want to remind the House of one fact about research conducted in 1994. There was tremendous complacency about how well our primary schools were doing. People were making speeches saying that we had the best primary education in Europe, but the Conservative Government conducted an evaluation and found that achievement of the required standard in English was as low as 44 per cent. and for maths was as low as 42 per cent. We must pay tribute to the Conservative Government who decided to conduct that testalthough it did so rather late in the daybecause that was the start of the process of trying to find out exactly how our children are doing in school.
	Since then, there has, of course, been a tremendous improvement. I was in touch with the university of Buckingham this morning, which was disappointed about the allegation of a 40 per cent. failure rate at 11. The general view is that the underachievement rate is about 20 per cent. There have been tremendous increases in literacy and numeracythe rates hover at about 78 to 80 per cent. That is a remarkable change, and the fact that we have much higher standards is down to the teachers, the heads and the students in our country.
	We should also look at the context in which some schools operate. Serious educational academics give evidence to my Select Committee. Professor Gorard, for example, says that we should look at the schools that do not have the highest achievement rates in context, because the schools that face the most challenging circumstances are likely to be classified as failing. He said:
	The last time I looked at the schools that were being put through special measures and so on, they were disproportionately inner city schools with high levels of disadvantaged children and so on.
	The 20 per cent. underachievement rate in primary schools is a problem. A substantial proportion of that 20 per cent. are children with special educational needs, children from families who have recently settled in this country and children who have had a really bad start in life, with bad parenting and little home support.

David Chaytor: Does that not reinforce the point that I tried to make earlier: that it does those children or their parents no service when the Opposition continuously to refer to them as failures? Many such children come from extremely difficult backgrounds and have serious learning difficulties, and merely because they fail to reach level 4 at key stage 2 or do not achieve five A* to Cs at the age of 16 does not mean that they are failures.

Barry Sheerman: My hon. Friend makes a good point. He and I listen to the evidence presented to the Select Committee, and that is what we find. I repeat that it helps no one to exaggerate underperformance in our schools, whether at primary or secondary level, or even at 16 to 18.
	I take issue with some correspondence that recently appeared in  The Times. It used to be a good newspaperI think that the hon. Member for Surrey Heath had a hand in its steady declinebut one contributor to the correspondence was Clarissa Farr, the high mistress of St. Paul's girls' school in the City of London, who decried the failure of state schools. After I read that, I looked at what the Leader of the Opposition said to his party conference:
	And yes, I went to a fantastic school and I'm not embarrassed about that because I had a great education and I know what a great education means. And knowing what a great education means there is a better chance of getting it for all of our children which is absolutely what I want in this country.
	In many ways, that was a very good thing to say, but people who decry state education encourage parents around the country to ask whether it is good enough for their children. That encourages the flight from local and community schools that I described earlier.
	I wrote to  The Times making it clear that I go to more schools than most Members of Parliament, and that in most of them I see high achievement, good leadership, excellent teaching and fantastic learning. I will not undermine that achievement, but I know that schools want a fair chance to achieve. It is all very well for the high mistress of St. Paul's girls' school, or people who went to Eton, to decry state education, but their backgrounds do not include poor kids on free school meals, or pupils with special educational needs, or looked-after children. I believe that the teaching staff of the elite schools would deserve to be examined very closely if their charges did not get five straight As at A-level and go on to the top universities.
	I want to make the very serious point that schools in our communities depend on a fair distribution of population. Recently, I visited a school in Maidstone in Kent, where there is a cluster of three secondary moderns among many grammar schools. One secondary modern was doing exceptionally well, with two-thirds or three-quarters of its pupils going on to higher education. What Labour Members know, and Opposition Members deny, is that the overall performance of all children in Kent, despite that county's selective education and grammar schools, is very poor and is below the national average. The children there who do not get into the selective schools do not get the same chances as children elsewhere in the country.
	When 65 per cent. of a school's pupils have special educational needs, and when 100 per cent. of its pupils are on free school meals, the task facing any headmaster is very challenging, however inspired the leadership and teaching. Those problems must be borne in mind when we discuss our country's education sector. The Select Committee has looked at school admissions and performance, and head teachers have told us time and again that what they need is the opportunity to have their school populations made up of children with a fair range of abilities, because only then will they be able to show what they can do.
	In contrast, the flight from schools in town centres that I have described occurs when parents believe that such schools cannot be as good as schools three miles away. It is assumed that the latter must have nicer children, but the result is that schools in town centres are of a lower standard because they are not able to teach all the children from their local communities. That is the lesson that people who went to Eton, or who teach at St. Paul's girls' school, need to learn; otherwise they may not understand the problem as well as they should.
	I have been accused of being the ghost of policies past, but I want to discuss one aspect of being an elected representative in this House. I believe passionately that people who want to give their children an independent education should be able to do so. We live in a free society, and Andrew Adonis was right to tell the independent head teachers last week that the Government have no plans to stop people sending their children to independent schools.
	Moreover, I do not hold any hon. Members responsible for where their parents sent them to be educated. That was a choice for our parents, not for any of us, but we in this House are public representatives and it matters where we send our children. Regardless of which party is in government, we will never get decent schools unless we understand that people in the electorate will not elect someone who does not have confidence in state education and who does not send his or her children to the schools attended by the children of ordinary voters. I hope that, when the next election comes, a website will be available that shows voters precisely where prospective Members of Parliament choose to send their children.

David Laws: Not all Labour Members would be happy about that.

Barry Sheerman: The hon. Gentleman points his finger across the Floor, but I know of only one or two Labour Members who would not want to make that information available. I assure the hon. Gentleman that I would say the same to them as I would to hon. Members in other parties.
	I shall conclude my remarks in a moment, as I am aware that there is a shortage of time in this debate. The hon. Member for Yeovil spoke for a long time, which reminded me of the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis), a former Liberal Democrat spokesman on education. However, I think that today's presentation surpassed even the previous record.
	My final point is to say that I disagree strongly with my party's Front Benchers. For six years, I have taken evidence as Chairman of the Education Committee, and I am very interested in where our education policies come from. This is a famous year, as it marks 20 years since the introduction of the national curriculum, and 10 years since the publication of the Dearing report. Sometimes, our political parties can act consensuallyas they did, for example, and for a time, with higher education, the national curriculum, testing and assessment, and Ofsted.
	When we are able to reach such a consensus, education takes a leap forward. At the moment, however, it is clear that the Conservative party rejects that consensual approach, as evidenced by the appointment of the hon. Member for Surrey Heath as its spokesman. That is disappointing, but I hope that the Conservative party will return to the centre ground and make common cause with the rest of us. If we work together and communicate with each other, we can ensure that our children's educationand the education sector as a totalitywill prosper.

Several hon. Members: rose

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Before I call the next speaker, I remind the House that, although there is a 15-minute limit on Back-Bench speeches, the entire allocation need not be taken up.

Anne Main: I should like to be able to say that it is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman), but I had trouble understanding some of the rules and regulations that he seemed to lay down about where people should send their children to be educated. However, I agreed with the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Laws) when he said that there has been far too much politics in education and teaching over the yearsa fact that I can endorse fully.
	When I was a teacher in an inner-London secondary school, all classes had to be mixed ability, even though some children could barely read and write. Teaching such children was not an edifying task, and I still admire the way in which teachers struggle with pupils who are similarly ill equipped for secondary school. Mixed ability classes remain, and because of the absence of a system based on sets or streams that suit individual children teachers cannot teach to a child's ability.
	Teaching is a hard job. I attended my local state school, and I am grateful to have been lucky enough to be taught well there. I get heartily sick, as do many of my colleagues, of the issue of where we go to school being used as a political football. Having taught in an inner-London comprehensive school, I suggest that it would be more edifying if more people focused not on where we went to school but on what our schools are like and talked to teachers doing the job.
	Teaching is a hard job and we cannot thank teachers enough. They have put up with so much rubbish being thrown their way over the years. They have had experimental schemes, such as the initial teaching alphabet in reading. They have had to teach mixed-ability groups, even though no one knew whether the system would work or how to help them to make it work. Now we have massive school discipline problems.
	Like many mums and dads, I have been a parent governor and a parent helper, helping pupils to read and so on. Teaching is hard work and there is always challenging behaviour, but teachers are not helped by some of the regulations that stop them removing challenging pupils. The Conservatives propose that schools should be able to exclude pupils who repeatedly flout school rules.
	Many parents have to draw up home-school agreements, but realise that they are not worth the paper they are written on, not because of a lack of good intentions on all sidesfrom the pupil, the parent and the schoolbut because the school has absolutely no sanction to ensure that agreements are implemented. Pupils who do not want to engage productively in education, whose life mission is to disrupt the education of othersI have taught some of themquickly wise up to the fact that there is little that the school can do. Their attitude is, You can't get rid of me, guv. Schools can do little to ensure that such pupils stop making the lives of teachers and other pupils a misery.
	I wish there was a formula for totting up the number of wasted classroom hours and opportunities, the missed trips and the lack of creative work because of the disruptive pupil at the back who will not allow the class to study. Such a system would show why some teachers have been tearing their hair out over the years. Many teachers would welcome being given back the authority that they used to have but which has been undermined by slack uniform policy, and by policies that schools cannot enforce or that are flouted by parents or pupils.
	We need firm and reasonable home-school agreements, but if, once all opportunities have been exhausted, the school wants to exclude a pupil, it should be able to do so. The exclusion should not be overturned by some other body, to the annoyance of the school, which then has to take back a pupil who is waving a metaphorical two fingers in the air and continues to behave disruptively. I urge that aspect of our policy on the Secretary of State and hope that he will focus his energies on school discipline, not through sanctions but by giving power back to schools to run things as they see fit.
	I struggled with the hon. Member for Huddersfield's assertion that people do not want to send their children to inner-city schools. Some of the best schools in my area are in the inner city. I am not a geographical person. I believe that what makes good schools and good learning practice are teachers, pupils and parental support, not necessarily the location of the school and whether it has state of the art equipment.
	We should not deprive our schools of what they need to do their task, but I am sometimes amazed that people who pontificate about what our schools most need often look only at statistics and not at the value added in schools by hard-working teachers. I recognise the irritation expressed in the sedentary comments of some of my hon. Friends when they hear claims that we have been referring to failing schools. It is the pupils who are failed, not the school or teachers who are failing. Pupils are failed by our inability to ensure that they have the right learning atmosphere in school. That is what we have to tackle.
	I am an old-fashioned girl. I went to a Church primary school; it was tiny, and older and younger pupils were taught in the same spacewe did not have separate classroomsbut the teaching was excellent. Why? It was because the school had an ethos of excellence supported by parents and pupils. If we did not behave at school we were quickly sent home, and if my parents thought I had been in trouble at schoolGod forbidI soon knew about it.
	The atmosphere at my school was completely supportive. Parents left out of the equation, or who feel helpless, often tell me that they cannot make their child do things because the child knows he can get away with it. We need to ensure that schools are given back the power to re-establish relationships.
	Funding is especially difficult for schools. Serious consideration has been given to special educational needs funding in Hertfordshirea subject about which I am passionate and which the Conservatives have explored. Special educational needs cover a wide spectrum. It is hugely positive, encouraging and inclusive for some pupils to be educated in the mainstream state system, but other pupils do not have that experience. I have met families whose severely autistic children have been statemented. The parents wanted to take their SEN funding to a special school that met their child's needs. Like me, they believe firmly that each child should be taught according to their ability in the school that the parent feels is right, which includes an education that is tailored to the child's needs. We should not try to insist that every child is shoe-horned into mainstream education under an inclusiveness policy that actually excludes the child, who may simply sit at the back of the class unable to participate fully.
	I am sure that we have all heard of hard casesof parents asking whether they can take their SEN funding to a special needs school. Unfortunately, the pendulum seems to have swung in quite the other direction and parents can no longer take the funding to the school of their choice. I feel passionately that there should be more special needs schools.
	We should have excellence in schools, but we cannot produce it simply by measuring the number of targets that have been met. Our teachers have been bogged down by targets. The only target should be whether a pupil leaves their education happy, having developed and achieved their potential and can engage in a productive working life with employers who recognise their qualifications.
	I am extremely concerned about the idea that we should force young people to remain at school until 18. Having taught truculent 15-year-olds, who have no interest whatever in gaining formal qualifications, I imagine that teaching truculent 18-year-olds would be far worse. The first school at which I taught was in Feltham. Its pupils were not high achievers academically, but many of them were hugely engaged by the car maintenance classes. They learned craft or job-based skills, which they might not necessarily use when they left school, and it was recognised that such courses were better for them than subjects to which they were not suited.
	If we insist that pupils remain at school until they are 18, the Secretary of State will need a radical rethink of the curriculum; otherwise, there will be a raft of pupils and parents at loggerheads with the local authority, because young adults will be forced to attend school rather than to choose what they want to do with their lives. Compulsion at that age is not the right way forward and I am extremely concerned about the proposal. I shall watch its progress with interest.
	I am fully aware that other Members want to speak, so I shall conclude my remarks.

Gerald Kaufman: The hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) is a trenchant, amusing speaker, and he has shown this afternoon that he can make his case in a concise manner. On the other hand, I do not know how he had the cheek to table the motion before us about the standard of education for the children whom we represent. During his party's period in government, right up to when we came into office in 1997, there were local schools in which teachers taught pupils while rain came in through the roof. At Stanley Grove community primary school, they taught music on the stairs. The primary school classes were overcrowded. State schools with 14,000 pupils were starved of money, while 2.25 million a year went to fund assisted places in the three independent schools in my constituency90 of my constituents had assisted places.
	Now, class sizes have been reduced, which has led to new classrooms being opened in schools all over my constituency. That is partly funded through the new deal for education. Let us remember that both the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives tried to prevent that new deal by voting against the windfall tax funding for it. Primary school children in my constituency get free fruit and vegetables every day. There is far wider computer availability and, again, that is because of the Government's funding.
	Major projects are going on in my constituency as a result of the Government's policies. St. Kentigern's Roman Catholic primary school, which I visited only last week, would not have been able to operateit would have been destroyedif the quotas amendment in the House of Lords, backed by the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives, had been made in the last Session. St. Kentigern's has banners outside the school, in the middle of a council estate, proclaiming with pride the fact that Ofsted gave it a report that makes it one of the country's outstanding schools. The school recently opened a novel and marvellous brain zone, which gives the children new opportunities. That is partly thanks to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport, who was formerly Secretary of State for Education and Skills.
	I shall be at All Saints primary school in Gorton in my constituency a week on Friday to open its new foundation stage unit. That unit will support the new early years framework, in which children aged between three and five learn through play in a stimulating environment. While I am at All Saints, I will present the basic skills quality mark award, which the school has won for the second time. Last month, William Hulme's grammar school in my constituencyone of the three independent schools that took up 2.25 million of my constituents' taxesbecame a city academy within the state system. Now, instead of parents paying 8,000 a year in fees to send their boys and girls to that school, no one will pay anything in parental fees, and academic selection has been abolished. It was an all-boys school, but now it is a co-educational school for pupils aged between 3 and 18. As a result, parents' applications to send children to that school have doubled. The school is working towards a pupil roll of 1,000. There is 10 million in Government-funded capital for building to improve the school and increase its capacity.
	Off Mount road in Gorton, there is Cedar Mount high school, which exists only because, at my request, a Labour Secretary of State rejected proposals to close down its predecessor on that site. Cedar Mount high school is to be part of an educational village, which is being built now, and which will be completed for pupils next year. There will be two schools on that site: Cedar Mount high school and Melland special needs high school. It is a wonderful sight to see. There will be a two-storey 100m internal street, a sports hall, a community wing, a learning resource centre containing a library and information and communication technology facilities, special subject zones for science, humanities and English, an on-site medical suite offering physiotherapy, and a hydrotherapy pool. That is what Labour Governments finance, and that is what the Labour Government's Building Schools for the Future programme has made possible.
	Further up in Gorton, there is the Wright Robinson specialist college. It is a sport and art college, but only because a Labour Secretary of State designated it as such. Before that, it was simply a high school in decrepit buildings that were falling to pieces. The staff were doing a very good job in difficult circumstances. The Building Schools for the Future initiative has launched a project that is on its way to completion, and which cost 33 million in private finance initiative money. That state-of-the-art school will have 1,750 students. The facilities will include a 25m swimming pool, eight courts, a four-court sports hall, two dance studios, a fitness unit, and a free weights room. All of those will be available to not only the 1,750 students at the school, but the local community in Abbey Hey and Gorton. All that is being achieved by a project that this Labour Government launched. Every classroom will have ICT links. There will be seven designated ICT classrooms.
	Those are achievements in my constituency in Gorton. If I were not conscious of the time limitations, I could move on to other areas across my constituency and describe how achievement after achievement is being made possible. Of course, that is done through the dedication of the teachers, who are wonderful, the governors and the pupils themselves, but it is made possible by this Labour Government, working with the Labour-controlled Manchester city council.
	We have been reminded that the new name for the Department is the Department for Children, Schools and Families, so I should point out that all over the Gorton constituency Sure Start projects are making life much easier for parents. In Longsight, the brand-new Sure Start building, which cost 3 million, is being used for a Muslim women's learning project. We have just gained further finance for that, again as a result of the activities of the Labour Government. There are Sure Start projects all over my constituency.
	I agreed with almost all of the speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman). I disagreed with him on one point that he made when talking about people being allowed to go to independent schools. Of course, I concur with him on that, but he said that parents wanted to choose that option. In my case, had my parents' choice and ability to pay been the governing factor, I would have gone to the nearest secondary modern school, because that was the choice at the time for working-class children whose parents were factory workers.
	What I want now in this state system is for parents to be able to choose the school that they want their children to go, and that includes faith schools. That is why I am pleased that the statement made by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, which was welcomed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Catholic Church, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs and Jews, championed the right to have faith schools. The Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives would have destroyed faith schools by imposing 25 per cent. quotas on them and wrecking the ethos of faith schools. Last week, I visited the KD Muslim grammar school in my constituencyI present prizes to its pupils. That school would not have been made possible had the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives had their way, but the Labour party rejected that approach and as a result we have these schools.

Barry Sheerman: If I said what my right hon. Friend believes I said, I shall immediately correct the record. I meant to say that I do not blame anyone for their choice of school for their son or daughter. I did say that we in this House are responsible for where we send our sons and daughters.

Gerald Kaufman: My hon. Friend and I have not differed in all the time that we have sat on these Benches, and we shall certainly not do so now.
	The hon. Member for Surrey Heath is not only a trenchant speaker, but a literary chap, so I shall conclude by quoting from The Return of Sherlock Holmes:
	'Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?'
	'To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.'
	'The dog did nothing in the night-time.'
	'That was the curious incident', remarked Sherlock Holmes.
	The curious incident of the dog in the afternoon today was the hon. Gentleman's deliberate failure to refer to grammar schools. The Conservatives have got themselves into a huge tangle and when he was challenged, he was not able to get himself out of it. He made a nice quip to try to do so, but the fact is that the Tories have got themselves into a mess over grammar schools from which they will not extricate themselves. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State made it clear that although the Government have achieved nowhere near everything that Labour Members want to achieve, they have nevertheless done wonders in my constituency. My constituents want the Government to go on doing so and that is why they want a Labour Government to continue.

Graham Stuart: It is a pleasure to be back in the House and to find that we are discussing education so early in this parliamentary Session. I am glad to see that the Secretary of State has come down from his excitement about general elections and stopped running around the studios telling everyone that there should be one. He indulged in partisan banter in his conference speech and gave the most humiliating and poor performance in a television studio. Anyone who has not seen it should go to YouTube and search for IDS versus a load of Balls. They should be able to find the interview and see that the Secretary of State was not fulfilling the requirements of his position.
	However, the Secretary of State came to the House today in a spirit of humility, perhaps as a result of his recent experiences, and he was honest about standards. Although many Labour Members were crying out that the Conservatives should not throw light on areas where the current education system is not doing well enough, it turns out that the Secretary of State repeated the key statistic that appears in today's motionthat nearly half of pupils are leaving primary school without the educational attainment that we on both sides of the House hoped to see.
	The Conservatives have been clear about the need for greater independence in the setting up of schools and about encouraging more academies. Today's debate has served a purpose by slowly getting the new Secretary of State to change his attitude that structures do not matter and to recognise that they do. Although in his speech he showed no enthusiasm for the academies programme, in his answers to the questions from the Liberal Front Bench, he started to express enthusiasm. We are excited by the prospect of setting schools free and by the belief that those areas of the country where we see the poorest performance, often in inner cities, where local authorities and the Government have not managed to provide adequate opportunities for kids, there is an exciting programme of innovation and change, with parents having a stronger role in determining how schools are run.
	The Conservatives will help that by removing the requirement for external donations. We want a single academy contract so that outside providers can run nationwide networks of schools to a high standard, allowing pupil choicea word that did not appear once in the Secretary of State's speechto help drive change. I do not know whether this is true of colleagues in the House, but I do not see choice as an end in itself. I see choice as the lever of change, which parents in areas where the schools are not good enough can use to raise standards. Parental choice can be exercised to insist on new schools and on changes to schools that are failing. That is the point of the change agenda. It is not an end in itself; it is about raising standards.
	That is why we are excited about the new academies. The Secretary of State is not quite there yet. We want to see whole-class teaching, streaming and setting. We want robust discipline brought back. We do not want rhetoric from the Government. We want the reality. We know that even in the toughest areas, traditional teaching can work. We do not want a return to the 11-plus. Our party has not got itself into a knot about that. We are focused on improving standards in all schools, and we believe that the points that I have made are the way to do that.

David Chaytor: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Graham Stuart: I do not have time to do so and I will end up stealing someone else's time, so if the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I shall press on.
	There seems to be movement from the Government on synthetic phonics, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) has pushed for some time. It was kind of the Liberal Democrat spokesman, the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Laws), to credit the Conservatives with having pushed that forward. We also believe in a rigorously enforced uniform policy, strict standards of discipline, a strong ethos in the school, and setting by ability throughout the school. The Minister recently stressed that parents from low income families should not find themselves unable to afford that uniform. I hope that he will not contradict our desire for a strong uniform policy, which should be mediated by common senseI am glad to see him nod.
	The Minister would not expect me to do otherwise than raise the issue of education funding. I have done so on many occasions in private meetings and in debates with the Minister. Beverley and Holderness, which is part of the East Riding of Yorkshire, has the fourth lowest education funding in the country. The gap between the best funded authorities and the lowest funded is growing. None of us denies that the best measures of deprivation available to any Government should be used, but the fact that the gap between places like the East Riding and other areas should increase over time is deeply regrettable. I pay tribute to the fact that despite very low funding and the costs of delivering education in a rural areaon which the Minister has previously commented, for which I am grateful to himand thanks to the teachers, the pupils and the effort made by the Conservative-run East Riding of Yorkshire council, together they have delivered significant, consistent and ongoing improvements in standards. I do not want to take a private comment out of turn, but the Minister might say that doing so well with so little diminishes the strength of the argument for having more. That is not true, however, because money should go to where it can best be used. In the East Riding of Yorkshire, our schools have shown that they can do very well.
	I have mentioned to the Minister that Beverley grammar school, which is a comprehensive school in Beverley, Beverley high school and Longcroft school are three outstandingly successful schools. The head teachers from all three schools have mentioned their demoralisation as they try to deal with the funding pressure. I hope that the Minister will examine that issue.
	In an earlier intervention, I mentioned the cross-border issue, and I will not miss this opportunity to ask the Minister to re-examine it. That issue may be at the margin, but every pupil who leaves a deprived area of Hull and attends an East Riding school should bring with them some of the funding to provide the extra support that they may well need. That would not be a huge change. The comprehensive spending review has just been announced, and there is an opportunity to make that change in the interests of justice. I know that such a change would be extremely popular in my local area, and it would create gratitude among local people towards the Labour Government.
	FinallyI am sure that I will be waved at, if I am using too much timeI want to discuss skills. As the Minister knows, the Leitch review, which was commissioned in 2004, produced the report, Skills in the UK: the long-term challenge. The report congratulated the Government on positive aspects of the education system, but it also pointed out that more than one third of working-age adults in the UK do not have a basic school-leaving qualification, that 5 million adults have no qualifications at all and that one in six adults do not have the literacy skills expected of an 11-year-old. The Government have rightly pointed out the need to improve skills, because the number of unskilled jobs will decrease dramatically in the next 20 years. In my local area, FE colleges have experienced funding pressures, and they see a discrepancy between how schools are treated and how they are treated. Adult courses are a way to feed adults with low skills back into education, but such courses have been closed down and people have been priced out. Given the comprehensive spending review, this is an opportune time for the Minister to address some of those issues.
	I have said that I will not speak for overly long, so I will draw my remarks to a close. The new CSR is out and a new Secretary of State is in post. We need to support the innovation of academies and set schools free. We also need a Secretary of State who speaks with the same passion about the need to raise school standards as he does about the destruction of the Conservative party. I hope that the improvement in standards is more of a reality for the Secretary of State than the disappearing chance of a disappearing Conservative party.

Nick Gibb: This has been an excellent debate with a thrilling and strong opening by my hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove). Of all the public services, education has the greatest impact in shaping lives, promoting opportunity and ensuring economic strength. If we get education right today, we can be confident about the kind of society that we will have in 20 years' time.
	Today's debate takes place after more than 10 years of a Labour Government, who promised that education, education, education would be their priority and whose manifesto promised zero tolerance of underperformance. I shall quote the former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, in his famous 1996 Labour party conference speech:
	We are 35th in the world league table of education standards. 35th. They say give me the boy at 7 and I'll give you the man at 70. Well give me the education system that's 35th in the world today and I'll give you the economy that's 35th tomorrow.
	The Secretary of State has demanded an acknowledgment that there has been an improvement since 1997, and I am happy to provide it. There has been a modest improvement, but instead of 35th in the world, we are now 29th on the same World Economic Forum league table. We are behind Belgium, Japan, New Zealand, Indonesia, Australia, Cyprus, France and Malta. We used to be ahead of the United States, but we are now 14 places behind it; we used to be ahead of China, but we are now behind both China and India, the great emerging economic giants. I ask myself whether this is the extent of Labour's ambition: an education system that is 29th in the world, and therefore an economy that will be 29th in the world tomorrow. There has been a modest improvement, yes, but not on the scale promised in 1997 and not on the scale that we need if we are to compete in the knowledge economy of the new world.
	Yes, standards of reading have risen from 63 per cent. in 1996 to 80 per cent. today, but one in five children still leave primary school unable to read properly. There is no excuse for that; in deprived parts of the country, there are primary schools with challenging intakes that get 100 per cent. of their children to level 4 in English. Some 40 per cent. of children leave primary school not having reached the expected level in reading, writing and maths combined; that same 40 per cent. go on to fail to achieve five good GCSEs.
	Yes, there has been a modest improvement in GCSE results: 45 per cent. achieved five or more GCSEs in 1997, while 58 per cent. do so today. However, when we include English and maths, the figure is only 45 per cent., and if science is added in, it is only 40 per cent. The gap between the headline figure and the figure including English, maths and science has risen from 10 per cent. in 1997 to 18 percentage points today. Most alarming of all, the figure for 15-year-olds achieving a grade C or higher in English, maths, science and a language has actually fallen, from 27 per cent. in 1997 to 25.7 per cent. today.
	The hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman) was right to point out the importance of the tests and how they reveal some deep-seated problems. It was refreshing to hear the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Laws); with Liberal Democrat education policy under his stewardship, I think there will be a growing consensus between the Liberal Democrats and the Conservative party, given that they are now in favour of academies.
	The right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman) spoke passionately about education in his constituency. He mentioned particularly William Hulme's grammar school, which I have visited and which is now in the state sector. In a thoughtful speech, my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr. Stuart) pointed out the importance of setting by ability, of whole-class teaching and of good discipline and behaviour.
	The problem with this Government is that in recent weeks they have focused too much on spin, and in the past 10 years they have focused too much on eye-catching initiatives. If the Government really want to raise standards in our schools, they need to challenge the ideology that has dominated the educational establishment during the past 30 or 40 years. That ideology led to look and say methods of teaching children to read, so that now 23 per cent. of adults cannot read the dosage on an aspirin bottle.
	To say such things is not, as the hon. Member for Huddersfield suggested, to talk down the education system, but to point out the realities

Barry Sheerman: rose

Nick Gibb: I shall not give way, because of the time available.
	If we want a consensus, we have to address those realities so that we can address the solutions to such problems together. The ideology that I have mentioned led to mixed-ability teaching in our comprehensive schools; the bright become bored and the less able become disaffected, and that invites disruption and truancy. In an excellent speech, my hon. Friend the Member for St. Albans (Anne Main) was right to point out the difficulties of teaching mixed-ability classes, in which there are wide ranges of abilitywith some children barely able to read and write and others who should be going to Oxford or Cambridge.
	When the Labour party came to office, it promised more setting. Yet after 10 years in office, only 40 per cent. of academic lessons are set by ability. That means that six out of 10 lessons still take place in mixed-ability classesthe kind of classes that are difficult to teach, as my hon. Friend pointed out. I know that many Labour Members share those concerns.

David Chaytor: rose

Nick Gibb: I shall not give way, because of the time available.
	The issue is not one of left or right, but about ensuring that our schools adopt tried and tested teaching methods and a curriculum that imparts knowledge as well as skills. It is about keeping out of our schools ideologically driven fads that have not been tested and that, when implemented, lead to declining standards.
	The Government talk about wanting to improve behaviour in our schools, but they have made it increasingly difficult for head teachers to exclude disruptive pupils. They have refused to allow schools to make the signing of a home-school contract a condition of acceptance at a school. They have refused to abolish appeals panels, which second-guess the decisions of head teachers to exclude. As a result, a quarter of appeals are won by the excluded child, who then returns triumphantly to the school to challenge the authority of the head and the teaching staff. That is why teachers leave the teaching profession, and it is why standards are low in too many of our schools51 per cent. of them according to Ofsted and the Secretary of State's predecessor.
	I had hoped that Education Ministers would follow the lead given by my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron), who put country before party advantage when he supported last year's Education Bill, which would have fallen but for Conservative votes supporting the Government in the Aye Lobby. I had hoped that we could work togetherI hope that we still canto ensure higher standards in our schools. But all we now hear and read in the newspapers from the Minister for Schools and Learners and his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is a return to the old politics of cynicism and spin. I say that more in sorrow than in anger. The country will have to wait two years before we can see a genuine reforming Government who will actually deliver higher standards in all of our schools.

Jim Knight: I welcome today's debate and thank hon. Members for their insightful contributions, which I shall try to comment on in a moment.
	My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has outlined the significant progress that has been made in our schools over the past few years since our dodgy inheritance from the Conservative party, but as he has also acknowledged, we know that our education system is not yet world class. While we have many outstanding examples of schools, with more children and young people than ever before performing to their best at school, we want excellence to be the standard available to all so that each child has the opportunity to fulfil their potential.
	We want to deliver genuine opportunity for all, overcoming attainment gaps and eradicating child poverty, ensuring that outcomes are determined by talent and hard work and building a fair society and a culture that celebrates success. Thanks to unprecedented investment over the past 10 years, and the immense dedication of all those who work in schools, we have exceptionally strong foundations to build on. We will continue to sharpen our focus on ensuring that every pupil gets a personalised education, responsive to their individual needs and supportive of their individual talents. We will get each child off to the best possible start in life by giving them the skills they need to thrive in the modern world.
	Because we believe that learning is a right and not a privilege, and that everyone should have the opportunity to benefit from this right until at least the age of 18 as a precursor to a successful adult life, we will be legislating to extend this right to every single young person in England, and in doing so we will raise aspirations and galvanise the whole system to do better for our young people. We are prepared to put in the necessary investment to realise those bold ambitions, creating the world-class education system supportive of every unique individual that this Government are determined to deliver and to which Conservative Members only pay lip service.
	The Opposition run down our achievements, while their spending plans make it very clear where their priorities lie. Their proposals to raise the inheritance tax threshold to 1 million would cost 3 billion, delivering 2 billion in benefits to their old school friends in the richest 5,000 estates. By contrast, our priorities are to invest in a fair level of inheritance tax, and put the remaining 2 billion into health and educationproposals that properly meet the aspirations of the public for the future of their family, not just at the end of their lives but at the beginning of their children and grandchildrens' lives too. That is an investment in everyone's future, rather than immediate cashback for the wealthy.
	What do our passion and priority for education mean to our constituents? One thing they all see is new schools. My capital announcement today means that by the end of the latest spending period there will have been a sevenfold increase in investment in real terms since 1997.
	The new funding will go towards ensuring that our youngest children have the best possible learning environmentinspiring new buildings and integrated technology instead of the cramped classrooms, peeling paint and outside loos under the Tories. We can not only build 675 replacement primaries in England and more than 400 new secondaries, but provide new money for councils not yet in the Building Schools for the Future programme for special educational needs pupils and diplomas. We can also provide more money for school kitchens and, of course, 3 billion devolved straight to schools and more than 4.5 billion devolved to councils.
	In 1997, the Tories' whole capital budget was well short of only 1 billion. However, our determination is not only to create successful schools but to support strong and confident families, thus helping families to help themselves. How can children achieve in school if we do not do better for their health, safety and early development, and support their parents and carers? Through the children's plan, about which we are currently consulting, we draw on the expertise of all those who live with, work with and understand children in order best to address those genuinely tough issues.
	Through the 10-year youth strategy and its commitment of more than 650 million, we have signalled our intent to offer young people the opportunity to develop and grow through participating in positive activities beyond school. The Labour partythe Governmentis committed to putting its money where its mouth is.
	We have had an engaging debate, although at times it has spread more heat than light. It was led by the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove), who displayed a mastery of drama but gets no marks for history. He said that he wanted to set up more parent-promoted schools, but parents already have the power to establish schools under the Education and Inspections Act 2006. The first parent-promoted school, Elmgreen school in Lambeth, opened this September, with support from the Labour council and local Labour Members of Parliament. As it expands, it is due to move into a new building. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman can have a word with local Tory councillor Andrew Gibson, who opposes expanding a parent-promoted school.
	The hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Laws) made an interesting speech, which contrasted with that of the hon. Member for Surrey Heath. He asked about child poverty. It is the joint responsibility of the Department for Children, Schools and Families, the Department for Work and Pensions and Her Majesty's Treasury to tackle that. All three Departments take a joint lead and, as he said, we have a public service agreement target to halve child poverty by 2010 and eradicate it by 2020. The DWP is investing 150 million in helping parents get back into work, and our Department is improving education and access and funding to child care. On 2 August, 4 billion over three years was announced for children's centres and child care. That includes child care to support 50,000 parents into work or training.
	The Chairman of the Select Committee made a thoughtful speech and demonstrated why he commands respect from all hon. Members. The hon. Member for Surrey Heath needs to learn from that.
	The hon. Member for St. Albans (Anne Main) drew on her experience of teaching when the previous Government were in power. She supported abolishing exclusion appeals despite the inevitability of that increasing the number of cases that go to the courts and posing a huge threat to special educational needs pupils and their parents. It is up to local authorities to decide whether to keep open, replace or build special schools. Today, I have allocated 608 million to local authorities that are late in the Building Schools for the Future programme, asking them to spend it on diplomas and special educational needs provision in their areas.
	My right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman) spoke about the brain zone in his constituency. His intelligent speech was certainly in concert with that.
	The hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr. Stuart) also contributed to the debate. I was delighted to visit his constituency last month, where I saw the effect of the June floods and the extraordinary efforts of staff in the school that I visited, led by their head teacher John Bennett. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman welcomes the 61.7 million that I have allocated to his local authority in my announcement today.
	The hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr. Gibb) made a thoughtful speech, which made me wonder why he had not been promoted to the position of shadow Secretary of State. However, he repeated the statistic regarding five A* to C grades, including English, maths, science and a language. The proportion of pupils studying a language has fallen because it is no longer compulsorya change that was made in 1997. Using that statistic is therefore simply spin and the hon. Gentleman should be ashamed of himself for doing that.
	I welcome the opportunities offered by today's debate to acknowledge the commitment and dedication of all those working in our schools. I recognise that we have more to do to ensure that every child reaches their full potential through school and is able to find an education that inspires and motivates them beyond the age of 16. However, unlike the Conservative party, we have the answersthrough our commitment to personalised learning, the package of reforms for young people, including the youth strategy, new, challenging choices to study diplomas and extending every young person's learning until the age of 18.
	The Conservatives are rich in rhetoric, good on gimmicks and poor in policy. They run down the achievements of pupils and teachers while offering nothing new. We have the policies to build the world-class education system to which we aspire. We will continue to invest in children, schools and families, to drive up standards and to give teachers the discipline powers for which they ask. We will continue to win the argument with the Opposition as we have done on selection, the curriculum, and early years.
	I therefore urge hon. Members to defeat the Conservatives in the Lobby by rejecting their vacuous motion.

Question put, That the original words stand part of the Question:
	 The House divided: Ayes 231, Noes 313.

Question accordingly negatived.
	 Question, That the proposed words be there added,  put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 31 (Questions on amendments), and agreed to.
	Mr. Deputy Speaker  forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to.
	 Resolved,
	That this House commends the real and substantial improvements achieved over the past decade in educational standards and welcomes the Government's commitment to a world class education for all; applauds the unprecedented investment in education over this period, so that per pupil revenue spending has increased nationally by 1,840 per pupil (66 per cent.) in real terms between 1997-98 and 2007-08 and that by 2010-11 there will have been a seven fold increase in real terms in capital investment since 1996-97; acknowledges the proportion of pupils achieving the required standard in English at age 11 increased from 63 per cent. in 1997 to 80 per cent. in 2007 and in maths from 62 per cent. to 77 per cent.; further acknowledges that the proportion of pupils achieving five good GCSEs (at A*-C grades) increased from 45.1 per cent. in 1997 to 58.5 per cent. in 2006 and from just 35.6 per cent. to 45.3 per cent. for those achieving five good GCSEs including English and maths; notes that in 1997 there were 616 schools where less than 25 per cent. of pupils achieved five good GCSEs and that this number fell to 47 in 2006; welcomes the proposal to raise the participation age for education or training to 18 years; further welcomes the launch of the first five Diplomas as a key step towards this objective; and further commends the 10 Year Youth Plan and the creation of the Department for Children, Schools and Families, bringing together strategic leadership for all services to drive up standards, tackle poverty and ensure all children and young people have a safe, secure and happy childhood.

Home Information Packs and Stamp Duty

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I must inform the House that Mr. Speaker has selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.

Grant Shapps: I beg to move,
	That this House notes the growing concern over the effect of Home Information Packs (HIPs) on a fragile housing market; observes that the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors has warned that the introduction of HIPs has already led to a downturn in the market for both four and three bedroom homes; recalls that the Government was warned against introducing HIPs from across the housing industry; is concerned that none of the revised secondary legislation for HIPs was scrutinised or debated by the House before its implementation; calls for Home Information Packs to be scrapped and Energy Performance Certificates to be implemented separately; and asserts that ending stamp duty for first time buyers up to 250,000 would do far more to help home buyers and sellers.
	Were the country looking for a single policy that best encapsulates the Government's failure to listen, I suspect that home information packs would be in the running. In forcing through the legislation, Ministers have consistently ignored the advice of housing experts, the industry, the market, buyers, sellers and colleagues on both sides of the House and in the other place. Now that HIPs are partially implemented, the results are becoming all too clear, with an already fragile housing market shaken to the core by a dramatic drop in the number of new homes being put up for sale. While everyone agrees that home buying and selling really should be faster and easier, is it not time that the Minister admitted that the Government have forced on England and Wales a half-baked law that is clumsy, ineffective and damaging to the housing market?
	Time and again, the Government watered down their flawed proposals, and HIPs quickly turned into nothing more than expensive but worthless red tape. Then, under pressure to rescue the policy, the Minister for Housing made home condition reports optional, thereby destroying the centrepiece of the legislation. Although the Government's website still says that home condition reports are
	an important part of the Pack,
	does she accept that, for all intents and purposes, they have been shelved and forgotten?
	On that point, can the Minister tell us what proportion of home information packs are being ordered with the optional home condition reports included? To add to the incompetent nature of the legislation, the HIPs small print says that
	including information on flooding, subsidence and contaminated land is all at the discretion of the seller.
	Can the Minister tell us how many sellers with homes known to be at flood risk have voluntarily paid this extra money to point that out to buyers?
	The net result of the muddle, confusion and incompetence is that buyers simply cannot trust HIPs. All the usual valuations, searches and surveys are mostly still required by the banks, building societies and solicitors. Costs are up and effectiveness is down.
	It is not just me or the Conservative party who are saying this; the industry agrees. When the Consumers Association was in favour of the original HIP proposals, the Government warmly welcomed that and quoted it regularly. Does the Minister now agree with the Consumers Association's more recent conclusions that the new half-HIP is a
	useless but a very expensive waste of time?
	As the start date approached, we warned the Government that there were not enough HIP inspectors, but they were not listening. Blinkered to the truth, they tried to push stubbornly ahead with HIPs, only to be forced red-faced back to the House at the eleventh hour to announce an embarrassing delay. Fortunately for the Housing Minister, that job did not fall to her. In August, HIPs on four-bedroomed homes were finally introduced. Despite a 50 per cent. drop in the number of four-beds coming on to the market, the Government still failed to assess the impact, instead choosing to impose HIPs on three-bed homes from September.
	However, with all that confusion, delay and lack of marketable properties, another group of people was starting to hurt. We warned the Minister that she was wrong to suggest that qualified HIP inspectors could earn up to 70,000 a year by training to become a HIP inspector or domestic energy assessor. In reality, those hard-working people have been hung out to dry by the Government. Many of them have spent their savings on a fundamentally flawed scheme, and they, I think, deserve an apology. Will the Minister take this opportunity to apologise to those enterprising people who now find themselves without sufficient work and out of pocket?

Andrew Miller: Are these the same hard-working people that the motion wants to put out of work? Has the hon. Gentleman had any face-to-face discussions with home energy certificate providers and pack providers? The largest company in my constituency to deal with those matters, employing 500 people, tells me that that is not happening. The motion has come out of thin air.

Grant Shapps: I shall come on to what the rest of the industry is finding out about the situation. If the hon. Gentleman is seriously suggesting that we should maintain bad law for the sake of bad law, I have to disagree with him. This Government have led those people into training for jobs that do not exist. According to the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, they would never be paid 70,000 a year even if HIPs were fully up and running, which they are not.

Ian Liddell-Grainger: My hon. Friend will know that when the scheme started we warned the Government that there was no way in which there would be enough providers. The training systems were not up to training them. The Government knew that at the time. Does he agree that they have misled the country and should apologise to the House and the nation?

Grant Shapps: My hon. Friend is right when he says that the scheme has been a fiasco from beginning to end. It is an exemplary example of a Government who have refused to listen to common sense. It is not just us whom they have not listened to; they have not listened to the industry or the consumers, all of whom are lined up against this atrocious piece of legislation, which does not help anybody to buy or sell a house.

Phyllis Starkey: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Grant Shapps: I want to make a little progress.
	By contrast, we have always been crystal clear about our opposition to HIPs. We saw what was wrong with them. We voted against them. Last week, we pledged to scrap them.

Celia Barlow: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Grant Shapps: I want to make some progress.
	Where the Government have thrown the market into complete and utter turmoil, we have sent a clear signal that would end this bureaucratic nightmare of HIPs. As they have become increasingly discredited, the embarrassed Minister has tried to use energy performance certificates as a green fig leaf with which to cover up her embarrassment.
	We think that EPCs can be introduced more quickly and effectively without HIPs. Will the Minister explain why our approach was possible in Northern Ireland but not in England and Wales? On their own, energy performance certificates are a good thing. They mean that house buyers will have better information about their new homes. However, even the Government's Better Regulation Commission warned that the new regulations are imposing
	additional administrative burdens without adequate justification
	and go
	beyond the requirements of the Directive,
	with
	no supporting evidence to justify this 'gold-plating'.
	Does the Minister accept that damning indictment of her policy by the Government's own commission?
	We said that HIPS could increase the cost of moving home, that sellers would be put off, that housing supply would be restricted and that instability could rattle the marketplace. The letters and e-mails that I have received since the introduction of HIPS suggest that our concern was not misplaced, with agents reporting a shortage of three and four-bedroom houses coming on to the market. A survey conducted by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors last month revealed that 73 per cent. of respondents had recorded that fewer three and four-bedroom properties were becoming available than in the same month last year, and that new instructions requiring a HIP had decreased by 37 per cent. In the face of that compelling new evidence, will the Minister now concede that the introduction of HIPS has had a deeply detrimental impact on the housing market?

Nick Raynsford: The hon. Gentleman will, I hope, have done his homework, and will have seen the August bulletin of the RICS, to which he referred. It commented that new instructions to sell property had fallen for the third consecutive month. Will the hon. Gentleman now explain what was happening in June and July in relation to HIPS?

Grant Shapps: The hon. Gentleman willI hopebe pleased to learn that I have done my research. I did not hear him mention that he has an interest in the Association of Home Information Pack Providers.

Nick Raynsford: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I should make it clear that my interest is declared in the Register of Members' Interests. I always declare my interest at the beginning of a substantive speech, but do you agree that it is not necessary to declare an interest when asking a question?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I am perfectly happy with the explanation given by the right hon. Gentleman, but I think that there is nothing to stop a Member from making a debating point about the matterwithout, I hope, making an insinuation of dishonour on the part of the right hon. Gentleman.

Grant Shapps: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
	I am sure that the Minister will try to characterise this as a problem only for those with a vested interest, but it is not. The truth is that the public are worried. London and Country, the United Kingdom's largest mortgage broker, recently asked a panel of its own customers for their thoughts on HIPS, which revealed that 62 per cent. thought that the information contained in them would not help to sell their properties. Even more damning, 78 per cent. thought that HIPS were bad value for money.
	The cost of obtaining information that does not come with the now weakened HIPS may not be quite as significant for those privileged couples who, through generous taxpayers' allowances, can buy a second home in, say, central London, but first-time buyers struggle to pay for their surveys, and every penny really does count to them. Does the Minister agree that, unlike this expensive red tape, our policy of raising stamp duty to 250,000 would make a real difference to nine out of 10 first-time buyers?
	HIPS is the story of a Government who have been in office for 10 years but are fast running out of steam. It is a fiasco that started when the Government employed consultants whom the National Audit Office later described as having a clear conflict of interests. As compelling evidence mounted that the original HIPS proposals were seriously flawed, all that the Minister could do was shut her eyes and charge ahead with legislation that stumbled from crisis to crisis.

Rob Marris: The hon. Gentleman mentioned stamp duty. He wishes to assist first-time buyers; so do the Government, and they have. Cutting stamp duty will be of no benefit to first-time buyers, because house prices will simply adjust upwards. Conversely, HIPs shift costs from buyers to sellers. Does the hon. Gentleman not see a contradiction in his position?

Grant Shapps: I do not see a contradiction in a position that makes it easier for nine out of 10 first-time buyers to purchase a house and removes bureaucracy from the home buying and selling process. There is simply no contradiction in that.

Phyllis Starkey: May I take the hon. Gentleman back to the point I attempted to make in my earlier intervention when he was mentioning the industry? For the sake of clarity, will he explain whether the industry is solely the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, which has a strong vested interest? If not, what other representatives of the industry is he citing?

Grant Shapps: The hon. Lady will correct me if I am wrong, but I understand that the RICS also supplies HIPs, so it has a strong vested interest in both directions. It has spoken in a truthful manner, as has almost every other professional body that has been consulted on the issue. In fact, we have now reached the stage where the Association of Home Information Pack Providers is pretty much the only organisation supporting this flawed measure.
	The last time I stood at the Dispatch Box, I asked the Minister for Housing 11 questions. Reading from a prepared text, she failed to answer a single one of them. Today I have asked the Minister a further 10 questions, and I am sure that Members would like to hear her answers to them, plus those to three more questions that I have for her.
	Will the Minister guarantee today that information gathered for HIPs will not be used for stealth council tax revaluation? Is the Minister aware of a leaked memo from her own West Yorkshire Trading Standards Service that confirms that HIPs are completely unenforceable throughout large parts of the country, including her backyard? Finally, as the statutory instrument introducing HIPs has yet to be laid before Parliament, will she accept my invitation to follow the lead of the Prime Minister and Chancellor of poaching yet another of my party's policies by announcing to the House that she will today abolish the costly, ineffective and discredited HIPs?

Yvette Cooper: I beg to move, To leave out from House to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:
	'believes that the ongoing reform of the home buying and selling process should revolve around the interests of the consumer and environmental sustainability; considers that the most important thing for the housing market is macroeconomic stability including sound public finances; therefore further believes that unfunded tax cuts including on stamp duty would be irresponsible; further believes that increased house building to deliver more affordable homes is essential to help first time buyers; further considers that the introduction of Home Information Packs and Energy Performance Certificates can improve the process of home buying and selling for consumers and provide them with vital information about the energy efficiency of homes and practical suggestions about how to cut fuel bills and reduce carbon emissions; and notes that the Government continues to work with industry to consider further reform of the home buying and selling process in order to maximise the benefits for consumers.'.
	I welcome the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps) to what I believe is his first Opposition day debate. I also believe that he has just made his first parliamentary remarks on home information packs. I noticed that he and his party chose not to take up any of the opportunities to debate HIPs in Julyin one of their Opposition day debates or by seeking an early date for Committee consideration of the regulations. Neither did he take up the opportunity to ask about HIPs or raise stamp duty during the first oral questions after his appointment. In fact, he did not raise housing at the first oral questions because he was not present; apparently, he was in a place called Ealing at the time. I am sure that he has fond memories of his important role in the Ealing campaignI can certainly tell him that we do, and that we are always very happy to remind him of the role he played.
	The hon. Gentleman raised a series of points about HIPs and stability in the housing market. Although stamp duty is mentioned in his motion, he refrained from mentioning it, except when my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris) referred to it.
	Home information packs and energy performance certificates are now in place for three and four-bedroom properties. The Government set out a phased roll-out last May, which is now under way; more than 1,000 energy performance certificates have now been processed. I should point out that many of the calamities that Opposition Members predicted have not materialised. HIPs are not creating months of delay; in fact, the average time taken to compile a HIP is five to seven days, far faster than it takes to gather the same information under the old system.

Robert Syms: The Minister spoke of a phased roll-out. Will she give us the date on which properties with one or two bedrooms, or other properties, will be covered by the regulations? If the policy is to be pursued, logic demands that a timetable be set.

Yvette Cooper: No, I shall not set out the timetable today. In May, we set out the criteria for the phased roll-out. One element in those criteria was the number of energy assessorswhich has been increasing very quicklyand another was that the policy's implementation, and the experience in the market so far, should be monitored. That consideration is taking place at the moment, and we will set out the timetable for the next steps in due course.
	I can also tell the House that, contrary to predictions by the Opposition, HIPs are not costing an average of 1,000 each. The current average market price is 300 to 350, most of which covers the cost of things that buyers and sellers of homes pay for under the traditional system. That means that they are saving money thanks to the introduction of HIPs.
	Moreover, some estate agents are offering HIPs on a no-sale, no-fee basis, or even for free. Indeed, search costs are coming down as a result of HIPs, with more than 80 local authorities cutting the price by an average of 30, and a couple doing so by more than 100. In addition, the Energy Savings Trust has said that the new energy performance certificates have the potential to save homeowners 300 a year on fuel bills.

David Jones: I thank the Minister for giving way, and I refer to my declaration in the Register of Members' Interests. Does she agree that most local searches for HIPs are personal searches that are not widely acceptable to the industry? For most purchasers, it is necessary to make a second, official search. Does that not add to the cost to the process?

Yvette Cooper: That is simply not the case. In fact, personal searches already account for about 40 per cent. of the market. They are a very important, significant and established part of the process: a lot of solicitors already use them, and lenders are familiar with them. It is not the case that all buyers are having to purchase additional searches as a result of the introduction of HIPs, which can include either personal or local authority searches.
	It is significant that the introduction of HIPs has improved competition and cut the cost of searches. I believe that searches need to be reformed further, but it is important to recognise that personal searches are covered by all sorts of insurance and protections, and to ensure that what is effectively misinformation about them is not spread around.
	HIPs and EPCs are already increasing transparency. They are speeding up the process of providing information, and bringing in new competition to help cut costs for consumers.

James Duddridge: The Minister was kind enough to write to me about EPCs in July, when she explained that the certificate would have to be compiled in the 12 months before a property was put on the market but that that requirement was to be reviewed over the summer. Will she update the House about that review?

Yvette Cooper: We will be consulting fully on the appropriate age for EPCs. We have made it clear that it is important for people to have information that is relevant and up to date, and we will shortly make it possible for people to express their different views. For example, Opposition Members believe that the certificates should have a life of up to 10 years, although I cannot imagine that many people making a decision about buying a house would find such old information especially useful, given that it deals with fuel prices and the measures that they could take to change their homes.

Robert Goodwill: Does the Minister agree that most householders already have very useful documentation that could be made available to buyers? I am referring to gas and electricity bills, which people are used to reading and understanding.

Yvette Cooper: That is true but, if that is Opposition policy, it does not say much for their commitment to the environment. Consumers need to be aware of what more they can do to cut their carbon emissions as well as their fuel bills. After all, 27 per cent. of this country's carbon emissions come from our homes, and a lot of it comes from existing homes.
	It is important that people have up-to-date information. Shops such as Comet or Currys make sure that their fridges carry energy efficiency ratings. The introduction of those ratings means that it is hard to find a fridge or washing machine that is not A rated. Those certificates have been important, as they have provided people in the market with information and an opportunity to make decisions accordingly. Given the serious climate change challenges we face, it is right that we provide people with such information. It is deeply unfortunate that Conservative Members are so opposed to the measures and have tried to water down energy performance certificates, which is why organisations such as the World Wide Fund for Nature and Friends of the Earth have been so critical of their approach.

Julie Kirkbride: Will the right hon. Lady answer the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps)? Why have the Government done things differently in Northern Ireland?

Yvette Cooper: The hon. Lady may be aware that a different approach is being taken not only in Northern Ireland but also in Scotland. It is right that we provide people with proper energy performance information that they can use to cut their carbon emissions and to reduce their fuel bills. They can also use the information to get access to grants and additional helpto install loft lagging or cavity wall insulation. When we look at houses, not many of us think about whether there is cavity wall insulation. For the first time, the certificates will provide people with that important information.
	It is unfair that people are denied such information, which is why we support its provision, and it is deeply disappointing that Conservative Members are so hostile to it [ Interruption. ] They have been hostile; they have tried to water down energy performance certificates. Indeed, the party chair did not want the certificates to be introduced at all because she is opposed to energy assessors visiting homes to carry out the work.
	The hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield suggested that an easier way to do the work would be to ask Centrica to provide energy performance certificates. I have to inform him that Centrica is already putting energy performance certificates into the market because it believes that they are a good thing.

John Redwood: rose

Yvette Cooper: I give way to a huge champion of measures to tackle the environment.

John Redwood: How right the Minister is, but I like effective measures, not imposed measures of questionable value. We do not like the element of compulsion. If energy certificates were valuable, people would buy them.
	As the Minister says that she wants more affordable housing, will she tell us how far house prices will have to fall before she thinks houses will be affordable?

Yvette Cooper: I shall be happy to have a discussion with the right hon. Gentleman about affordable housing. I intend to say more about it shortly. The problem with house prices over the past 30 years is that they have risen so much faster than earnings, as a result of the lack of house building or insufficient house building. Even the houses that have been built were strongly opposed by the Conservative party and by Conservative MPs across the country.
	I want to complete my remarks about energy performance certificates, as they are important. The hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield revealed the view of the Conservative party: the Conservatives do not believe in energy performance certificates, do not want them introduced and lack commitment to them. The hon. Gentleman told the Conservative conference that he wanted to abolish home information packs. He did not say that he wanted to retain energy certificates. He was challenged by  Building magazine, which reported:
	The shadow minister told Building Magazine he had intended to mention energy certificates but had not thought it necessary.
	That reveals the Conservatives' approach. They are not interested in action on the environment or in the energy performance certificates that are making a huge difference by giving people throughout the country proper information.

Grant Shapps: I hope the Minister will accept that as EU law is not optional energy certificates have to be part of it. We are simply arguing that the process is much less bureaucratic in Northern Ireland and she still has not answered the fundamental question why the same thing cannot happen in England.

Yvette Cooper: In other words, the hon. Gentleman grudgingly accepts energy performance certificates because he believes that he is being forced to do so by Europe. That is his approach. We think we are right to put energy performance certificates in place. They have been implemented earlier than in many other European countries because of the decisions we have taken.
	Members have also made points about the impact of the measures on the housing market and about stability in the housing market, which is an important issue. However, they are wrong to say that everything that has been happening in the housing market is the result of HIPsalthough we understand why they are doing so. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr. Raynsford) has already pointed out, the housing market was quiet in many areas even before HIPs were introduced. Things were quiet throughout the market, even for one or two-bedroom properties.
	Stability in the housing market is important, and the Government have to do what they can, through their areas of responsibility, to support it. That means doing what they can to support low mortgage rates through good macro-economic management and sound public finances. The measures in the motion tabled by the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield would put that at risk. We know, of course, how the Conservatives screwed up in the past: mortgage rates hit 15 per cent. and remained at over 10 per cent. for many months at a time. As a result, 75,000 people lost their homes in one year alone. Part of the mismanagement that contributed to the recession was down to the Conservative Government's complete lack of control over the public finances.
	I repeat that the approach that the hon. Gentleman and other Opposition Members take to stamp duty is to set out a completely unfunded proposal, and that is part of creating a huge black hole in the public finances, which is irresponsible. There are unfunded proposals on inheritance tax and on tax cuts for the married, and the sums do not stack up. It does actually matter that Opposition Members' sums do not stack up. It matters to real peopleto mortgage holders and homeowners. If the public finances do not stack up, and if one blows a hole in the public finances, interest rates and mortgage rates go up. It is not a game; it actually affects people in the real world. Serious parties that are interested in government have to take such matters into account. That is why the hon. Gentleman's approach is so irresponsible.
	Opposition Members chose the subject for debate. They talked about home information packs, and only marginally about stamp duty, because their views on HIPs are all that they have as housing policy. They are not prepared to face up to the serious decisions that have to be taken to promote housing market stability and help first-time buyers.

Claire Curtis-Thomas: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that her Department has invested a substantial amount of money in research on producing eco-friendly housing, and housing that is a net negative user of electricity, and which can indeed even export it? One of the reasons we need energy performance certificates is so that we can start with existing housing stock and produce a far better environmental and carbon footprint. A consequence of that is investment in research and businesses that are interested in the environment.

Yvette Cooper: My hon. Friend is right, and there is a lot that we can do with new and existing homes to help to cut the carbon emissions from housing. It is right to do so, and irresponsible not to, given the carbon emissions that come from housing.
	We must recognise that if our aim is to promote stability in the housing market, and to help first-time buyers, that means building more homes in the long term. We understand that the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield always feels a bit traumatised when we speak about building more homes. We have teased him before in the House about his local No way to 10K campaign. Let me remind the House what his local website said on the day he was appointed Conservative housing spokesperson:
	We believe you cannot build your way out of a housing crisis.
	A week later, he changed it, so that it said
	whilst building more properties is obviously vital.
	The hon. Gentleman was asked by  Inside Housing to explain his views, and particularly to say whether his local No way to 10K housing campaign made him a nimby. He answered:
	No way 10k is not actually about 10,000 houses: it just happened to rhyme.
	We thought it was bad policy, but it is just bad poetry.
	Opposition Members are campaigning in every corner of the country against increased housing. I do not criticise Tory MPs who oppose individual developments, because we all know that there are atrocious developments that should be blocked at local level, but the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield knows that Conservative MPs across the country oppose increased housing.

Grant Shapps: rose

Yvette Cooper: I shall let the hon. Gentleman intervene if he will join me in condemning, for example, the hon. Member for Wantage (Mr. Vaizey), who summed this up when he was asked on BBC radio whether he supported more homes in his constituency and he said:
	I'm not opposed to new homes per se, I just think they should be built in Andrew Smith's constituency.

Grant Shapps: I am grateful to the Minister for citing a popular local campaign in my constituency; we are willing to build 6,000 houses, but 10,000 is too many. Incidentally, the campaign is supported by the entire local Labour party. Will the Minister comment on the behaviour of six of her Cabinet colleagues who are opposing development in their constituencies?

Yvette Cooper: The hon. Gentleman was clearly not listening, because I said just 30 seconds ago that I do not criticise Tory MPs who oppose individual developments, as they might well be atrocious and inappropriate. However, I do criticise Conservative MPs who oppose overall increases in housing because they think that there should be fewer homes in their constituencies and across the country. They are not supporting the additional homes that the country needs [ Interruption. ] The Labour party supports having 3 million more homes by 2020 and I challenge the Conservatives to do the same [Interruption.]

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I think that the sedentary chorus from the Opposition Front Bench is becoming a little intrusive.

Yvette Cooper: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I challenge Conservative Members to support the increased housing that we need in Britain. They should support having 3 million more homes by 2020 and the fact that 1 million of those must be zero carbon. They should join us in signing up to support the additional housing that first-time buyers and people on council lists need. We need those homes. No matter what else the hon. Gentleman says, as long as they oppose the increases in housing that we badly need, they are betraying first-time buyers and people on council waiting lists, and their housing policy is a sham. He should forget the policy and stick to the poetry.

Paul Holmes: It has long been clear that the introduction of home information packs was a shambles. That argument has been rehearsed many times, not only today, but back in the summer in this House and in the other place, and many times before. I shall not go into all the details again because we all know them.
	Suffice it to say, the introduction of HIPs is emblematic of this Labour Government and of a lack of transparency. Where are the reports that they carried out on the pilot studies before the introduction of HIPs? Why have they still not been shared with us and with the public? It is also emblematic of sheer incompetence. The introduction of this bungled scheme has cost the taxpayer about 20 million to date, and since the summer of 2006 we have seen three sets of regulations, a legal challenge from the professionals and the scrapping of the compulsory home condition reports.
	So much about HIPs remains clouded. When will the Minister release the results of those pilot tests? Why has there been such a delay? Since the legislation came into force, how long has it taken to put the packs together and how does that compare with the four to five days envisaged by the Government? The Minister said that the answer is seven to eight days. The scheme has been running for nine weeks, so for how many of those weeks and on how big a sample is that figure based? How much have the packs cost in reality, and how does that compare with the 400 average predicted by the Government? The Minister suggested that the answer is 300 to 350 on average so far, but on how many weeks and on how big a sample is that based? Given that this legislation has been so controversial, surely she should share this information and research with the House, so that we can reach an informed decision on HIPs and their future.
	The motion concentrates not so much on HIPs but on their effect on a fragile housing market. It seems to ignore the fact that a struggling housing market is the result of many other factors, including the lack of social housing to rent, which puts a huge upward pressure on house prices; the moratorium on council house building over the past 10 to 13 years; the lack of affordable housing, which also forces up house prices; the housing investment frenzy, whereby housing is increasingly seen as a speculative investment rather than as a home; the effect of, and crisis arising from, cheaper money generally; and the effect of the sub-prime market. When that hit the US, we were told that it would not be a problem in this country, yet a week later the Northern Rock disaster happened. How much more of that is still to feed through into the housing market?
	The Conservative motion does not mention any of that, and it seems to blame a fragile housing market on HIPs. It provides an answer by suggesting the scrapping of stamp duty for first-time buyers on houses up to 250,000. One obvious question is how to define a first-time buyer. If, for example, a divorced couple buy a house separately later, is either of them a first-time buyer? Is one of them a first-time buyer? If separated partners go on to buy a house with a new partner, and the new partner has never bought a house before, are the new couple first-time buyers or not?

James Duddridge: Would it not be possible to establish whether those people's names were on a mortgage paper or on deeds? If not, they would be first-time buyers.

Paul Holmes: That ignores the point that I just made. If a married couple or a couple living together separate and sell their house, and if one of those partners goes on to buy a house with another partner who has never bought a house before, does the new couple with a joint mortgage count as a new buyer or not? There are dozens of other examples that would confuse the system and create a bureaucratic nightmare.

Phyllis Starkey: May I add a couple of other examples that are not dealt with by the helpful intervention from the hon. Member for Rochford and Southend, East (James Duddridge)? First, an individual who was extraordinarily rich and had bought a house cash in hand would not have a mortgage but would be able to masquerade as a first-time buyer. Secondly, what if someone got their child to buy a house, which they then bought from them? They would not really be a first-time buyer. The scope for defrauding the system is enormous.

Paul Holmes: I agree. Many other examples could be cited to show the confusion that would arise from trying to define a first-time buyer under the scheme.
	Does the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps) think that abolishing stamp duty would, for example, help a 24-year-old earning 20,000 to buy a home in London or many other urban areas? How would the proposal help young families? It is irrelevant for many first-time buyers.
	More alarming is what was not in the motion. How would the Conservatives provide for the long-term affordability of housing, as the motion does not deal with that? Would they build genuinely affordable homes, and how would they end the emasculation of council housing? The hon. Gentleman's speech was full of buzz words and aspiration, but answers were absent.
	The stamp duty announcement had more than a hint of Blairite spin. It was a good headline-grabbing initiative but will it do any good? Even if we leave aside the questionable economics, there are innumerable problems. For example, a Halifax survey in December 2006 stated that the average salary necessary to afford a house was just under 30,000 a year, so there is a genuine affordable homes crisis. Teachers, nurses and postmen, to name a few, all earn less than that. How will a token measure on stamp duty help those people and help the market as a whole?
	Moving on to the questionable economics, perhaps the hon. Gentleman did not read  The Daily Telegraph on Monday, in which three economists all discredited the stamp duty proposal and stated that rather than helping home buyers, it would benefit sellers and increase house prices.

Robert Goodwill: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that in the north of England, in places such as Scarborough and Chesterfield, the stamp duty proposal would help many people?

Paul Holmes: I fail to see how, in places such as Chesterfield and much of the midlands and the north, scrapping stamp duty would help many first-time buyers. Although the average first-time house buyer pays about 169,000, that is not remotely the position in my constituency or in many areas in the north and the midlands. I do not see how it would help there.
	The proposal would not help the buyer, but it would help the seller. It is a simple matter of supply and demand. With more money across the board and a fixed amount of property, property prices increase. The stamp duty proposal would do little, if anything, to help first-time buyers. It would give more equity to existing owners. The announcement is far more likely to distort the housing market further and does nothing to rectify the real problem with stamp duty: the slab system. At present, no stamp duty is paid on a house up to 125,000. On a house costing 125,001, stamp duty is due. Under the proposal, the buyer would pay nothing up to 250,000, but at 251,000 they would suddenly have to pay 7,500. Stamp duty should be applied incrementally. It should be low at the point at which first-time buyers cross the threshold, and it should increase up the scale to multi-million pound homes, so that it hits the people who can afford it.
	Real aid to first-time buyers would not include a gimmick on stamp duty; it would include measures to tackle the issue of affordable housing. The Conservative announcement smacks of token measures on affordable housing. Perhaps I am being unfairat least the Conservatives now recognise that there is a crisis in affordable housingbut the announcement was rushed out last week in expectation of a general election. The announcement was more a case of what was left out rather than what was put inthere was no mention of affordable homes, community land trusts or long-term affordabilityand it did not include anything that would solve Britain's housing crisis.
	I read the conference speech by the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield with great interest. One line stood out:
	And today I can tell you how.
	I have read the speech three times, and I am still trying to work out how the Conservatives would solve the housing crisis and, in particular, the affordable housing crisis. They will not do so through that gimmick on stamp duty. The Prime Minister has discussed his vision; the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield has asked us to imagine what it is like to be a first-time buyer; next, the Leader of the Opposition will tell us that he has a dream. That is cosy consensus politics at its vacuous worst.
	The problem cannot be solved by raising the stamp duty threshold. It requires bold action, and the solutions are not hard to find. Community land trusts have been used in America and across Scandinavia, and pilots have already worked in this country. They can provide genuinely affordable homes for a wide range of people. Rather than handing over, as the Government seem to suggest, large tracts of public land from, for example, the NHS and the Ministry of Defence to private developers to allow them to make the maximum profit from selling houses, the Government should hand over large chunks of land to community land trusts. The value in the land would be held by the community, and individuals would buy and sell the bricks and mortar. The price would therefore be affordable from day one, which is rarely the case under existing affordable housing schemes, and property would remain affordable after it was sold.
	Shared equity is another tried-and-tested model that works. When the Liberal Democrats ran South Shropshire district council, for example, the council used equity mortgages to provide low-cost affordable housing for key workers and first-time buyers. The scheme worked brilliantly, but, unfortunately, the Conservatives abandoned it after they took over.
	The HIPs scheme contained some good provisions. As has been rehearsed on many occasions, the scheme's introduction was botched, and the question is whether we can salvage what was good. Having initially opposed energy performance certificates, which we have discussed, even the Conservatives now recognise that they are a good feature.
	The policy on the local authority search has many attractive features. How many times do people find an attractive house at a good price, only to drop out when they discover from the search that, for example, a bypass, sewage farm or industrial estate will be built next to it? In such cases, many people pay for searches, and the only people who gain are the solicitors and other companies who carry out the searches over and again. The inclusion of one search in the HIP is a great asset to the consumer, rather than people who make money out of conducting such searches. We should consider the interests of the consumer.
	In the second week of August, I was hiking on Dartmoor when a national journalist rang me to comment on the fact that personal searches, which were increasingly common before HIPs were introduced, are now rejected by mortgage lenders when conducted as part of a HIP survey. People therefore had to arrange two surveys, whereas the HIPs scheme was supposed to involve only one. Is that just initial teething trouble that the Government have already solved, or is it an insurmountable problem that renders HIPs pointless? We need the evidence and research from the Government in order to take an evidence-based decision.
	I first heard of home condition surveys back in 1997, when the new Labour Government floated the idea. My only declarable interest in housing is that I have purchased two houses in the past 20 years, and I know what a boon it would be to have one good survey that includes all the details on the condition of the house. How many times do people have a survey done but, for whatever reason, the purchase does not go ahead? In such a case, 10 different people might pay for a survey on one house. Why not include one survey in the HIP? The Government bottled out on that one and abandoned it very early in the process.
	The Government amendment states that certificates can improve the house-buying process and promises that the Government will work with the industrythe same industry that launched legal proceedings against them not many months agoto reform further the home-buying process. On 17 August, Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors spokesman Jeremy Leaf stated:
	The government has no idea how this
	that is, the introduction of HIPs
	will affect the housing market...We find it hard to believe that the government is pressing ahead with this policy at such short notice without first conducting a proper market impact study.
	The Government pressed ahead anyway, so now let us have the market impact study that RICS was calling for. Let the details of the pilot studies, which are still confidential, be released and let us have a proper evaluation of HIPs working in practice over this summer and into this autumn. Nine weeks is not long enough, especially during the summer holidays, when housing sales are always slight, and at a time when interest rates are at their highest since 2001 and the crisis at Northern Rock has knocked confidence in the housing market.
	Along with the pilot results from the early studies, let us have a decent longitudinal study of how HIPs work in practice. On those grounds, we could support the Government in the vote tonight, but only if such a serious and open review of HIPs were undertaken in practice. If they are a disaster, according to a serious, evidence-based review, we should scrap them. If they are good, and we can rescue their good features from the botched introduction and strengthen them, let us do that. However, let us ground the decision in evidence-based policy, not knee-jerk, headline-seeking motions.

Nick Hurd: Does the hon. Gentleman share my concern that the botched introduction of HIPs by the Governmentand it has been a shamblesrisks polluting the water of public attitudes towards the energy performance certificate? Would it not be simpler to go straight to that policy instrument and try to build consensus around it?

Paul Holmes: Even that is not a simple solution. We cannot simply scrap HIPs and go to EPCs; a whole series of procedural regulations and legislation would be needed to make the relevant adjustments. By the time we had done that, we could have had a proper review of the system and allowed it to bed in.
	As I said, if the Government can promise that there will be a serious and open review of the first three or four months of operation, and if they can release the pilot studies, we will support their proposal. As it stands, the Conservative motion is simplistic nonsense in respect of HIPs. On stamp duty, it both misses the point and would have an adverse effect on pricesto the cost, not the aid, of first-time buyers. On those grounds, we cannot support it.

Nick Raynsford: I draw attention to my declaration in the Register of Members' Interests.
	I agree with a great deal of what the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Paul Holmes) said, and I agree with him wholeheartedly about the need for sensible, clear and rational appraisal, rather than the over-the-top comments that we have heard from many people about the introduction of home information packs.
	I want to go back to first principles and why HIPs were necessary. In the course of the debate about the implementation, which has been less than satisfactory, we are at risk of losing sight of the benefits of the project. Under the previous house-buying and selling process, buyers had to make an offer, in what in most cases would be the largest single transaction in their lives, with only rudimentary information about the product that they proposed to buy.
	Self-evidently, that is a bizarre way of proceeding and no one would accept it as a rational way of buying any other commodity. The practice evolved over centuries, but that does not make it any better. As a result of the lack of adequate information, buyers had to undertake searches and commission surveys to obtain more information about the property that they intended to buy before the contract became unconditional. Inevitably, that made the process long and cumbersome and increased the scope for failures or problems in the transactioneither because the potential buyer found in the survey and search information unwelcome items of news that suggested the need to renegotiate the purchase price, or because the vendor had chosen to sell to someone else in the meantime. The practice of gazumping has been a scourge in the housing market at times. All these inefficiencies existed, and under the old system approximately 1 million a day was lost by members of the public in abortive costs as a result of inefficiencies in the market. It is shocking that members of the public lost 1 million a day because of unnecessary and abortive costs. The whole purpose of introducing reform to the system was to try to eliminate those inefficiencies and create efficiency savings that would not just save consumers' money, but speed up some of the slower, more tortuous elements of the process of buying and selling houses, while adding transparency and taking some of the heartbreak and stress out of it. It can be a very stressful process for many people.
	In 1997, that was the background to the study, to which the hon. Member for Chesterfield referred, that was made very early in the lifetime in the present Government. It was commissioned to look at the whole process and recommend ways forward. It was inclusive, it involved all the relevant professional bodies, and it was published in December 1998a year later than the hon. Gentleman said, but he was pretty near. It concluded that there was a strong case for making essential information about the property available upfront, including necessary survey and valuation information. That concept was then trialled in Bristol in 1999-2000, so this policy was not rushed in without thought or trials. The pilot in Bristol demonstrated a high level of satisfaction with HIPs among the people who had experienced them.

James Duddridge: Does the right hon. Gentleman recognise that those packs were provided for free, rather than costing up to 1,000? If something were provided to me for free, I imagine I would be greatly satisfied; that would not necessarily be the case if there were a much higher cost.

Nick Raynsford: Of course the packs were provided free as part of the pilot, but the purpose of the pilot was to look at the process, to see whether or not it achieved benefits. I have to say to the hon. Gentleman that one of the problems in all of this is that people have bandied estimates of the cost of HIPs, particularly the house condition report, with very little understanding of what the process would involve if the scheme were introduced on a mandatory basis and there were considerable competition in the market to secure custom.
	I do not think that the introduction of the current system was satisfactoryI have made that clear in speeches in the past, and I shall do so later. However, even now, a number of providers are offering either to provide the home information pack for free, or deferring the charge until the sale is completed, which removes completely the fear of cost that was used, I am afraid to say, by the Opposition among others to scaremonger. There are other elements, to which I shall return later, that provide scope for reducing costs to the public, and the public interest has been lost in much of the hysterical comment made about the scheme.

Phyllis Starkey: Is my right hon. Friend aware of cases in my constituency in which estate agents have been very innovative? One month, they told customers that if they sold a house with them during that month, they would not have to pay for a HIP, as a teaser to encourage them. The very next month, those estate agents enticed customers with the promise of a free HIP. Does that not say more about the entrepreneurial nature of estate agents, than it does about their having a settled view about HIPs one way or the other?

Nick Raynsford: My hon. Friend makes a very good point, and she reminds me that one of the commentators on the pilot in Bristol to which I referred was the then chairman of the National Association of Estate Agents, Mr. Hugh Dunsmore-Hardy, who was extremely supportive of the scheme. Not all of his members were supportivesome of them opposed the schemebut he was the chairman of the association and he was very supportive, as were most professionals. The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors was extremely supportive at the time. When the Bill to introduce HIPs was laid before Parliament, the institution said:
	RICS has consistently supported the concept of Home Information Packs.
	That was the climate at the time.

Ian Liddell-Grainger: I remember debating the matter with the right hon. Gentleman at the time in this Chamber. One of the problems was that it became more and more complicated, and less and less understandable, so more and more people became suspicious. The right hon. Gentleman is right about opinion at that time, but subsequently all those bodies, including mortgage lenders, solicitors and everyone else, said, No, we think it is a bad idea.

Nick Raynsford: I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman's memory is a little unclear. Matters did not get more complicated, they were simply delayedthat was the problem. Some bodies were unsympathetic from the outset. For example, the mortgage lenders were ambivalent from the start, but they have a vested interest. Their members charge every mortgage applicant a significant fee for commissioning a survey. That part of the system increases costs for the public. Under the proposed new system, there was scope for automated valuations, which would have dramatically reduced the cost to the public but undermined the interests of lenders.

Andrew Stunell: The right hon. Gentleman said that the public were losing 1 million a day. Would it help his case if he explained to whom the 1 million a day was being paid?

Nick Raynsford: The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. The money was being paid essentially to the professionalsthe surveyors, lawyers and mortgage lenderswho have a considerable financial interest in the matter.
	In the early days of the scheme, professionals in general, albeit not all of them, were supportive. As delays occurred, the group that opposed the scheme gained confidence and became more raucous, and the climate of opinion changed. That was unfortunate and I believe that it happened because of delay. The Bill that was due to effect the HIP proposal after the Bristol pilot was introduced in December 2000 failed to complete its passage before the 2001 general election and therefore fell. It was not reintroduced until 2004, and that long delay allowed momentum to be lost. The seeds of the problem were sown.
	The Government made the regrettable decision in the summer of 2006 to drop the home condition reports on grounds that I do not believe to be sound. That added further uncertainty and created a position whereby we are now considering a scheme that does not have all the benefits that the original prospectus offered. However, I believe that it can evolve into a workable scheme that will benefit the public.
	It is important at this stage to take stock, consider the current position rationally and try to prepare a proper, cool analysis and sensible recommendations for making progress rather than scaremongering or hysterically crying for extreme solutions. Scrapping HIPs, which the Opposition pledged to do, is not the right way forward. It would do nothing to tackle the problems that I have describedthe inefficiencies and delays in the existing system. It would simply give comfort to those who do well out of those inefficiencies, but it would not help the public. Indeed, it would be a betrayal. It would also threaten the livelihoods of the many people who have trained to carry out inspections and energy performance certificate work, on whose behalf the Opposition shed some crocodile tears. Perhaps they would like to listen to one such person, who wrote to me a few months ago. He said:
	I write to you as a recently qualified and certified Home Inspector. I did what Parliament asked me to and qualified and certified before 1st June 2007. I will not forgive the opposition parties for opposing this, nor will the 1,000s of people who have paid 1,000s to be trained.
	The Opposition should remember that their irresponsible scaremongering, criticisms and attacks contributed to the problem that those people who trained have experienced in losing the prospect of jobs that they should have had.

Ian Liddell-Grainger: The right hon. Gentleman's memory is as hazy as mine. I seem to remember his saying that there would be 70,000, that everybody would be looked after, that training grants would be available and that the Government would support the scheme. None of that happened. The right hon. Gentleman misrepresents what happened with the public at large.

Nick Raynsford: A process of training took place in which many people, including the one to whom I referred, enrolled and for which they paid good money. With proper implementation, they could have benefited from that training in full. As it is, they are benefiting from the introduction of the limited scheme and the work on energy performance certificates. Some of them are working on home condition reports, but the scale is not what was originally anticipated and hoped. It is the Opposition who are responsible for that, because it was they who called for the scrapping of the scheme, not this side of the House.
	Another thing that is not required is scaremongering about the impact of HIPs, in which the Opposition have also indulged. Claiming that HIPs have single-handedly led to a decline in the market is economic nonsense. As I pointed out in an earlier intervention, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors has published a survey showing that new instructions to sell property fell in August for the third consecutive month. Most people who were against HIPs said that there would be a rush to get properties on to the market before their introduction as people would not have to pay for one, and a decline when they were introduced. According to that analysis, there should have been booms in June and July and a fall-away in August. Not a bit of it: the fall began in June and it continued in July and August. There is not a shred of evidence to support the scaremongering from the Opposition.
	I regret the Opposition's economic illiteracy. If they did a little more homework and looked at the detailed analysis, they would see that the pattern varied regionally. It was not a uniform pattern; in fact, the RICS said that in August there had been marginal increases in instructions in London and Yorkshire and Humberside. Why were there increases in instructions in London and Yorkshire and Humberside following the introduction of HIPs? There was a uniform national introduction of HIPs. Why was there regional variation if HIPs were the entire reason for those decreases? Once again, there is clear evidence that the Opposition's case is completely unfounded and fanciful.
	What is required is calm rational analysis and support for ways to progress the implementation of HIPs until they deliver the benefits that they have the potential to deliver. That requires ensuring that we get as much information up front to buyers at the start of the process. That has already begun, but there is a long way to go. We must also realise the benefits for first-time buyers, who are the sole gainers from HIPs. HIPs have no downsides for them whatever. First-time buyers do not have to incur any costs at all in commissioning a HIP, but they receive the benefit. At a time when we are concerned about the interests of first-time buyers, that should surely be a pertinent consideration.
	We also need to continue to apply downward pressure on the time and the cost of various elements in the process. I am thinking particularly of searches, in which too many slow and inefficient processes are still involved, and valuations, where I have referred to the unreasonable demands imposed on potential buyers because of the requirement that they should pay for an expensive survey and valuation, when in practice an automated valuation could in most cases give the information much more cheaply and quickly.
	So far I have not mentioned energy performance certificates, which are hugely important, because we all recognise that climate change is the biggest challenge that our society faces. However good we are at improving the energy performance of new properties, the poor energy performance of many existing homes is a fundamental problem. That is why it is essential that house buyers purchasing an existing property are given accurate information at the outset about the energy efficiency of that home and about what cost-effective measures they can take to improve it. They can thereby see, for example, that there is a relatively short pay-back period for certain improvements that they could make cost-effectively and thus both reduce their own costs and help to reduce carbon emissions.
	That is common sense. It is absolutely correct and proper. To suggest, as the Opposition do, that the HIPs scheme should be scrapped and that there should be a different introduction of energy performance certificates seems crazy. Energy performance certificates are in place now. We need to extend them, not talk about scrapping the system. That requires, ultimately, the implementation of the whole scheme, which must be extended to all house sizes. I hope that my right hon. Friend will introduce measures as soon as possible to extend the application of HIPs to all houses in the market. Also, to repeat what I said before, it will be necessary to extend the scheme in due course to include home condition reports as well, because that will bring the full benefit of the scheme to the consumer.
	I have made it clear that I was not happy with the way in which the scheme was introduced. There were problems and weaknesses, but the situation is not irretrievable. There is a basis on which we can build, and our determination now should be to ensure the benefits to the public and a real improvement in the house buying and selling process.

Robert Syms: This is not the first debate that we have had on home information packs, and I doubt that it will be the last. This one is going to run and run. As the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr. Raynsford) has just said, the genesis of the matter goes right back to the beginning of the Blair Government. Indeed, I served on the Committee that debated the 2003 Housing Bill, which became the Housing Act 2004. I find it amazing that, having had such a long lead-up, the Government did not get more of their ducks in a row to produce the scheme in good time.
	I am not sure that the Government understood what they needed to do to establish the scheme. They needed to build capacity, to get people trained, and to give a degree of certainty of the outcome, yet every time it came to the crunch, they seemed to duck the issue and move away. The abandoning of the home condition reports, which were such a central part of the pack, largely undermined the existing scheme. We on this side of the House take a different point of view from the Government in that we do not think the scheme is salvageable.
	The right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich mentioned the losses incurred through transactions not proceeding. There are several reasons why transactions do not proceed, but we do not believe that the solution is to impose costs on the whole selling industry in order to offset the cost of those lost transactions. The cost of the scheme to the industry will in fact be rather higher than the cost of lost transactions under the previous system.
	There were trials, but, as we pointed out in Committee, giving someone a pack for free is rather different from making it compulsory and charging them for it. That was always going to be a difficulty. The Bristol trials were thrown at us on a daily, if not hourly, basis in Committee, and we were told that they were terribly popular. The reality, however, is that this country is somewhat different from Australia and some of the other countries that use this system. When I served on the Housing Bill Committee, I started off by feeling unsure about home information packs, but the more I heard about them, the more convinced I became that the idea would not work in the way that the Government said it would.
	The other approach we took in Committee was that if this was such a wonderful idea with such marvellous consumer benefits, and if people wanted it so much, why should it not be a voluntary scheme? Why make it compulsory? We argued that people would pay for it if it would result in an efficient market. The Government responded that they had to make it compulsory so that everyone would have a home information pack in order to speed up the chains and get a more efficient market. At the moment, however, only some housing is in the scheme, so we have a system in which only the buyers and sellers of certain types of houses have HIPs. We do not have a properly working scheme at the moment.
	We need an assessment of whether the scheme is working or not, but at the moment it is too early to tell, as we do not have a properly implemented scheme. We will not see the benefitsif there are benefits, as stated by the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwichunless we move to a system in which all houses are in the scheme and everyone has to have a pack. The logic of that argument is that we have to speed up the system, which is why I intervened on the Minister to ask when this would happen. If the Government are going to persevere with this, they are going to have to move quickly to include the other houses so that the logic of the system can work properly and effectively.
	There are problems. It is all very well for the Government to throw at us the fact that we are against the scheme, but what about the poor inspectors? Many people looked at the websites and saw a business opportunity. They spent 7,000sometimes 10,000 or 11,000to train. The proposition on which they undertook that training has changed, however. If they take the optimistic view of the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich, the scheme as originally intended might be implemented at some stage in the future. Between now and then, however, the potential marketplace for those people presents a problem. It has been pointed out that they did not get a grant. Some of them set up small businesses, websites and goodness knows what else. I am not sure that an apology would be worth very much, but I certainly think that the Government should give some thought to it. There are many people out there who took the assurances at face value and are now struggling. If the Government are not careful, those people will not do what they were trained to do but go into some other business because they do not see the prospects that they wanted coming to fruition. The capacity in the system will start to decline, so the ability to spread the scheme to smaller homes will be less. The Government have got themselves into a bit of a pickle.
	A debate on energy performance certificates has taken place across the Chamber and the Minister has talked about savings of up to 300 a property. What we need to remember is that only a small percentage of all this country's properties come up for sale and that a large percentage of those that do are new build, so they have some environmental benefits within them. About 96 or 97 per cent. of property does not come on to the market. At the moment, only four-bed propertiesand we are soon to move to three-bed propertieshave a home information pack with the energy performance certificate, so we are talking about only a percentage of a percentage. The vast majority of British housing stock does not have an energy performance certificate.
	If we are serious about tackling climate changewe are also going to have to face difficult decisions on what to do about nuclear power and increasing the generating capacity of our nationthe logical approach would be to look at the whole of the housing stock, perhaps over a period of years, to see whether efficiency savings could be made. It is sometimes the homes that are not sold for 20, 30, 40 or 50 years that are most in need of energy performance certificates. On the Government's approach, yes, it has been implemented early, but it covers only a small percentage of our housing stock. Substantially more could be done if more thought were given to how to spread the benefit throughout the entire housing stockeven to those homes that do not actually come on the market. We would then be able to make much greater and better progress.

Paul Holmes: Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that we have to start somewhere? In Germany, the process started a few years ago. The Germans attempted to cover 5 per cent. of existing houses every year in order to bring them up to acceptable energy standards. In San Francisco, it was started 20 years ago. The fact is that we are abysmally behind on environmental measures in this country, but we have to start somewhere. Is this not one of the first steps?

Robert Syms: I agree, but the Government should have some sort of target for doing the whole housing stock over a period of several, perhaps 10 or more, years. There might be a role for local government here. Why not fund some local authorities to ensure that the housing stock in their areas has a high percentage of energy performance certificates? Those with the highest percentage of housing with certificates should get some kind of benefit. If the carbon footprint and the environmental agenda are important, we have to deal with those aspects in homes, where so much energy is generated and wasted. At the moment, we are considering only a small percentage of the problem, so we can afford to broaden the argument and do substantially more by covering the whole housing stock.
	On the question of stamp duty for first-time buyers, we know that there are many concerns about young people not being able to get into the housing market. It is a great fear among many of my constituents, and we all know about the difficulties that youngsters face. We also know that many of them are buying at a rather older agerather than the later 20s, it is the 34s and 35s who are buyingand some of that is down to lifestyle. People get married later; they want to do their own thing by going to Nepal or other places; they do not necessarily want to get into the housing market straightaway.
	I would say that even though the Conservative proposals are not the only answer to the problem, they are a help. As we all know, buying a home comes with all sorts of associated expensescarpets and curtains, for exampleand people who are buying a home for the first time because of a relationship or marriage often end up with children. We know that poverty usually hits those families with one or two children in the first years of marriage, often because one of the household incomes goes down if the wife has to give up work. Our proposals offer some help to people who are struggling at the beginning of their adult lives. Insofar as we can pick bits apart, that is fine; it is a debating point. Ultimately, most of us, as politicians, would hope that we can address the problem and help people who want to get on to the housing ladder. What we are doing is helping. I therefore commend what was proposed today by our shadow Minister for Housing and at our party conference. Even if the other parties in the House do not agree with the proposal, let us hope that it engenders public debate about how to address the issue. There is not an easy answer, but the matter is of real concern to our constituents and many young people.
	Given the shouting across the Dispatch Box earlier, it seems that housing will probably be a battleground of the future. Building millions of homes is not the answer; we have to manage our existing housing stock. A lot of houses are empty, and a lot are sub-standard and can be done up. One million flats over shops are not in use. Many people live in homes that are too large for them, and tax incentives could be used to bring some of the unused bedrooms and other rooms back into the system and offset some building.
	A report by the Town and Country Planning Association, with which the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich has been associated in the pastas president, I thinkfound that one of the factors in the need to build more houses is longevity. People are living longer not just in the south but in the north and across the UK, so if more houses have to be built to deal with that, they will have to be built across the UK.
	Management of our housing stock is just as important as building. Whatever figures Ministers use2 million or 3 millionwe must remember that it is one side of a complicated equation for the provision of decent, environmentally friendly housing stock for our electorate. Using existing stock more effectively is an important part of that.

Andrew Miller: It is interesting to follow the hon. Member for Poole (Mr. Syms), who made a thoughtful speech. I hope that he allows logic to prevail and joins the Government in the Lobby tonight, because his conclusions do not lock into his thoughtful contribution. I feel sorry for the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Paul Holmes), who had to read the conference speech of the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps) three times; once would have been a punishment, but three times is far too much for anyone.
	I have taken a particular interest in this subject. I accept that there is a constituency interest, and it is not improper to argue the case for one's constituency in the Chamber. The new, revived Ellesmere Port and Neston constituency has changed dramatically from having an unemployment rate in the mid-teens under the Conservatives to having very low unemployment and exciting, vibrant new companies moving in. One of the companies to move into the Cheshire Oaks business park is LMS, which provides about a fifth of HIPs across the country. I have been following its fortunes with great care, as it not only employs several hundred of my constituents but its product has been controversial in the House. As with any company that has a controversial product, I want to make sure that I am on the right side of the argument, and not just because the company is in my constituency. I am firmly convinced that its product is good not only for the consumer but for the lender, and is beneficial for the whole market, which needs to develop some momentum.
	In a moment, I shall make some observations about the lower end of the housing market, which needs a stimulus. I want to encourage my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench to drive forward the policy to its logical conclusion.
	Figures have been bandied about, but HIPs from LMSif I can do an advertorial for itstart at just 249, including an energy performance certificate, and people can have them within a few days. An interesting consideration is that lenders can add their margin to the cost. The Department needs to reflect on how far it is reasonable for them to mark up the cost of the HIP product provided by a third-party company.
	An extremely good relationship has developed between LMS and the local further education college. Perhaps my right hon. Friend the Minister for Housing can pass that information on to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families. The energy aspect of the product and, indeed, the whole package are new, and the technology that supports it is by necessity, if it is to be efficient, very sophisticated. A partnership has developed with the college to provide training to people who work within the company. That new technology training is most welcome in a traditional manufacturing constituency. Although it benefits hugely from the retail and leisure sectors, it needed some modern service industries, at the cutting edge, to support its economy.
	Some of the world's leading names support the LMS platform and it has provided important work for my constituents. I asked its managing director, Andy Knee, what effect the motion would have [Laughter.] The Opposition think it is funny to make people redundant. Andy Knee said:
	The scrapping of HIPs would force LMS to make around 300 redundancies. Around  of these would be at our offices in Ellesmere Port and the other  would be energy assessors up and down the country. We would also have to write off a 12m investment programme.
	That is just one company. Others have also taken a perfectly honourable position and adopted new businesses in a new field. The Conservatives are happy to scrap their jobs. They are laughing. They always think that unemployment is a joke. They thought that it was a joke when 3 million were unemployedwhen unemployment was in the mid-teens in my constituency; it is now at 2 per cent. and falling.
	I want to press the Under-Secretary on why the Government are delaying the roll-out of HIPs for the whole property market. What estimate has been made of the level of unnecessary carbon dioxide emissions produced by one and two-bedroom properties? Having looked at the Government's amendment, which I support, it is axiomatic that there must be a figure. It would help if the Under-Secretary could let us know whether work has been done on that. It would be hugely beneficial if we could get that figure into the public domain and help people to understand that there are real benefits, not just for them as individuals, but for their families and society, from driving HIPs forward.
	There is no evidence that HIPs have adversely affected the market. My right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr. Raynsford) made that point extremely well. All agents report that stock levels of all property types are rising. There is plenty of property for sale; the problem is that there are not enough buyers.
	The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors's own figures are worth looking at. They suggest that listings of one and two-bedroom properties are down by almost 30 per cent. Surely if HIPS were distorting the market, the number of properties listed in that sector would be up, not down, as sellers rushed to beat the next commencement order. We cannot have it both ways, save for the Opposition. Their argument was false earlier this year, and it is false now. Many factors affect the market, and downturns happen from time to time.

Charles Walker: Who is responsible?

Andrew Miller: It is a market, and markets fluctuate. During other debates on this subject, I have heard people say, It will be different in different months of the year, because of the holiday season. It is a market fluctuation. The pattern governing one and two-bedroom properties, and the fact that listings are down by 30 per cent., has nothing whatever to do with HIPS
	The cost of an HIP, which can be deferred until the property sale is completed, represents a tiny fraction of the cost of moving home. A very good friend of mine has just experienced three abortive sales because his property was outside the scope of HIPs when he put it on the market. The simple fact was that in the 25 years he had owned the property lawyers' standards of due diligence had risen, and more and more queries were being raised about matters that used to be taken for granted. He has ended up with a problem resulting from a document that may not have been as strong legally as it should have been, but the sale of the property was delayed simply because of the way markets work. Had the HIP been in place and had he been required to arrange a survey in advance, he would have confronted the problem before the property went on the market.
	The simple reality is that the RICS and the Law Society want to protect the financial interests of their members. They want to keep conveyancing costs high and to exclude any other type of professional from inspecting properties. Their thinly veiled attempts to protect their own members' luxurious lifestyles ought to be resisted. We must proceed to a full roll-out of HIPs as soon as possible. Those who will gain most will be first-time buyers: they will begin to benefit, and we shall then be able to get down to the important business of improving energy efficiency.
	The housing market varies tremendously up and down the country. The hon. Member for Poole (Mr. Syms) mentioned flats over shops. In my constituency, excellent work by the Methodist Homes Housing Association in partnership with the local authority and shop owners has produced solutions, but such interventions make very small contributions to the market. There are many such small interventions, and I agree with the hon. Gentleman that we should give incentives to housing associations and local authorities.
	My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary should maximise the flexibility that he gives local authorities to develop schemes that suit the needs of their communities, each of which has a slightly different pattern. There cannot be a one-size-fits-all solution. What applies to the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich will certainly not apply to my constituency in Ellesmere Port, although the two constituencies contain a proportionately similar number of people at the disadvantaged end of the spectrum. Our housing markets are quite different.
	I ask for flexibility and an early roll-out. We should be confident. I agree with the hon. Member for Chesterfield that we should monitor the situation and that there should be transparency, but we should also stop listening to the weasel words of those Opposition Members who are simply singing the song of vested interest, and instead get on and do the job.

Charles Walker: We have just returned after an extremely long summer recess, but when those of us who have been Members for at least two and a half yearsand have therefore been involved in the whole home information pack fiascosit through debates such as this one, we realise that the summer recess is in fact not long enough. It should instead be about 11 months long, because when Members are away from the House they do not come up with hare-brained schemes such as the home information pack, which is just yet another tax on home owners.
	This Government clearly do not have a great love for home owners, because on top of massive increases in stamp duties over the past 10 years and the recent Northern Rock fiascowhich has led to interest rate rises for home ownersthey want to bring in yet another cost in the form of home information packs. It is all very well for the Minister, who clearly does not believe in them any more either, to say that a HIP will cost only 350 or 400that it amounts to merely a marginal increase in the cost of buying a housebut 350 or 400 is a lot of money for many people. I have not met anyone in my constituency or anywhere else who has said, Actually, I think home information packs are a very good idea.
	In his speech, the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Andrew Miller) expressed faux compassion for LMS, one of the largest HIP providers. It is clear that LMS wrote his speech for himand it is also clear that it managed to get it to him only a couple of hours ago, because it was not well rehearsed.
	The situation is bizarre: our country has a good housing market that works fairly wellin fact, it is one of the best-working housing marketsbut this Government have decided in their wisdom to gum it up. Of course, major transactions such as buying or selling a house do not always proceed as smoothly as one would like. They can come undone; people can pull out of a sale or purchase, or raise or drop the price. That is the nature of the market; and I wish this Government truly understood the market, because then they would not spend so much time interfering in its workings and making things all the more difficult for the many hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people who want to buy homes each year.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: I apologise for not having been present for the entire debate. During the recess, I bought a house and sold a house, and my sale took longer as a result of the pack because the searches are limited and the purchaser's solicitor insisted on doing his own full searches, which he had relied on in the past. I also think that the energy performance certificates are suspect and cannot be relied upon; I thought my house was extremely well insulatedit is double glazed throughout and the roof and tank are insulatedyet it got a relatively low score.

Charles Walker: My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. If I wish to buy a house in the future, I will not take the word of someone acting on behalf of the vendor. I will want to have a good look at the house for myself. Therefore, I will still pay my solicitor to do my searches. It is a little like buying a car. When we buy a car, the seller says, I've got the service history, but we reply, That's very useful, but I'm still going to get the guy from the AA to come along and have a look under the hood.
	Many of the people I talk to about this measure are concerned that it is just yet another excuse to have more people working in a quasi-governmental role snooping round their homes. They say, There will be yet more people I've got to have in my home looking behind the curtains, looking under the bed, telling me what I should be doing. There is not a huge appetite for that.
	Again, we can ask: what will happen to the information once it has been secured? Will the Government take ownership of it and use it at a later date to raise our council tax bands, or use it as an excuse to increase stamp duty? We do not know with this Government, because any excuse is always grabbed to put up the cost of things such as buying homes or to increase taxes. That is the way this Government work.
	If this Government were an honest Government, they would have had an election last weekbut setting that aside, they would also realise that this measure has been an unmitigated disaster. It is so boring to come to the Chamber and hear former Ministers justify what they did before they were removed from office. The right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr. Raynsford) gave a lengthy exposition of why the HIPs idea was so reasonable and good, but it is neither. Seven years have passed since he introduced it, but the faces of the few Labour Members still attending the debate make it clear that they know in their hearts that it is a disaster. Why do they not have the courage to say, Look, we got it wrong. Let's get rid of this nonsense. We're very sorry we've wasted so many people's time, and that we've conned those poor men and women into giving up their jobs and spending 4,500 on training to become inspectors.
	Opposition Members are nothing but fair. We recognise that those people must be compensated, even though taxpayers' money would have to be used. We hate to see people disadvantagedunlike the lot over there, who are quite happy to see millions of home owners every year disadvantaged by yet another tax. That is pretty thin gruel. Whenever the Prime Minister calls a general election, I think that people will let him know as much.

Clive Betts: I do not usually start a speech by agreeing with the Liberal Democrats, but the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Paul Holmes) made a very succinct and accurate analysis of Conservative proposals to reduce stamp duty. I also agree with him that it would be better if we could eventually move to a graduated stamp duty, instead of the stepped approach that we have at present, as that causes particular problems. The hon. Gentleman also offered a balanced and fair analysis of where we have got to with HIPs. He gave general support for what the Government are trying to achieve, but set out some criticism of the approach that has been adopted. I might disagree with the hon. Gentleman about other matters to do with general housing policy, but I accept what he said on those points.
	I first began to consider HIPs when the Select Committee covering the work of the former Office of the Deputy Prime Minister held an inquiry into the draft Housing Bill in the previous Parliament. We had lots of questions about the impact that HIPs would have on the market, especially in respect of low-value homes, and we were also concerned about the process and the costs that would be involved. Like me, the hon. Member for Poole (Mr. Syms) was a member of the Standing Committee considering the Bill, and he has already described the further discussions that took place. A lot of analysis was done, but I am not sure that sufficient account was taken of all the concerns expressed about the process that needed to be gone through before HIPs were introduced.
	I shall say a little more about that in a minute, but I was eventually persuaded that something needed to be done when I examined the system that we have now. Does anyone here really mean to suggest that the current process for buying and selling homes in this country is perfect, ideal, satisfactory and incapable of reform? The hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mr. Walker), who has just spoken, seemed to come close to doing so. The trouble is that the Opposition oppose the introduction of HIPs but, as far as I can see, do not have any policy to improve and reform the process of buying and selling homes.
	The Opposition appear to be satisfied with the current arrangements, but anyone who has gone through the process of buying and selling a home will describe all the flaws and frustrations in the system. Lots of elements in the process do not work, and I am not talking about the frustrations caused by lumping furniture around during the removals stage. It is the process of buying and selling that makes people so frustrated that they say, We'll never do this again!
	A few minutes ago, the hon. Member for Broxbourne almost got as far as describing the fundamental flaw in the process, which is that people making the most important purchase in their lives make an offer on a property without all the essential knowledge that they need. They do not know the property's true condition, or its energy performance. They do not always know whether the people selling the property actually own it, yet still they make an offer.

Charles Walker: Many offers are made, but they are subject to survey.

Clive Betts: Of course, that is exactly right, but would it not be an awful lot better to make an offer once the survey had been done? Only three out of four offers made go through to conclusion, which means that one in four is dropped. Those prospective purchasers who, once the relevant information is made available, decide to withdraw their offer and not complete, discover that they have wasted the money that they have already spent. The process is nonsense. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right: he would not make an offer on a car without getting it tested by a qualified person. He would not hand over 10,000 for a car until a survey had been carried out. That shows what nonsense the process of buying and selling property is and why we need reform.
	I have a criticism of the Government. I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr. Raynsford) that it is a great shame that they dropped the home condition reports from HIPs and made them voluntary. The reports will not work on that basis and will eventually have to become a proper part of HIPs, so that everyone produces a home condition report before they put a property on the market. People will then be able to see what they are buying.
	Members say that they would not trust a survey or search commissioned by someone else. We explored that issue in detail in the Housing Bill Committee. We asked what would happen if a survey was found to be faulty and the condition of the property was not as described. Would a third partythe buyer who had not commissioned the surveyhave the right to sue the surveyor if the job had not been done properly? The answer is yes; they would have that right. It is clearly on the record in  Hansard.
	I am content with that position. If people can sue the surveyor for doing his or her job improperly there is no problem in trusting a survey commissioned by the seller. If the buyer goes through with the purchase and the survey is found to be faulty, they will have a right in law to take action. That is a satisfactory position.
	I accept that the implementation of HIPs has been far from perfect. As I have already said, it was not the happiest episode in the Government's life. The process was too slow, the direction was not clear and we should have had pilots. We have not got it right in a number of respects.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: The hon. Gentleman always follows these debates with great care, so will he take on board my practical example of what happened to me when I tried to sell a house? The standard survey included in the pack was not trusted by the purchaser's solicitors. The same thing would apply to surveys and everything else. In this country, we have the principle of caveat emptorthe buyer must satisfy himself as to the information he is given. If he is not given sufficient information he will have to do the whole thing all over again.

Clive Betts: I think the hon. Gentleman is referring not to surveys but to searches and my right hon. Friend the Minister dealt with that point. As HIPs come into effect and are more common and people understand them, the problem of buyers wanting second searches or second surveys will not arise. People will come to accept HIPs as a legitimate part of the process.
	There have been temporary hiccups in the introduction of the new scheme, but they are minor compared with what the Conservatives told us would happen. They said there would be Armageddon in the housing market; the market would collapse, no one would put their house up for sale and if they did it would take weeks to get the packs produced. No energy surveyors would be available and delays would result from the shortage. The cost would be 1,000 a time. That is what we were told over and over again, but what actually happened?
	My right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich demolished the argument that houses would not come on to the market because of the introduction of HIPs. There is no evidence for that. The cost is not 1,000 but between 300 and 350 on average, including the energy performance certificates, which were not part of the original process. I hope that most people welcome the fact that we have those certificates even if they cannot agree that they should be part of the HIP process.
	There have not been long delays. There are plenty of energy surveyors able to do the work. All the disasters we were told would befall us when HIPs were introduced have not happened. There is not a shred of evidence.
	I have not had a single complaint from a constituent buying a house or from an estate agent since HIPs were introduced. I guess that is the case for most Members. We have had no complaints because the process was introduced far more smoothly than even I as a supporter of HIPs believed possible. That is the real situation.
	The hon. Member for Poole made a reasonable speech. He talked about energy performance certificates. It is right that they should be part of HIPs. We have at least introduced them, and an increasing number of houses will get them as buying and selling with HIPs proceeds. However, I agree with him that we have to consider what more we can do to roll out energy performance certificates for houses that probably will not come on to the market for a number of years. The Communities and Local Government Committee will hold an inquiry on energy conservation for existing homes; that is one of the issues that we want to take up. It was a reasonable point, and the Government ought to think about it.
	I agree with the hon. Gentleman that HIPs will not operate properly if they are used for only some houses. My solution is to get one and two-bedroom properties into the HIP process as quickly as possible, not to scrap the process for properties with three or more bedrooms. However, he made a reasonable point, and the Government have to think about how quickly we can introduce the process, so that we can get more sense into the market. Of course, introducing HIPs for one and two-bedroom properties is most likely to help first-time buyers, who tend to buy such properties, as there will be a transfer of cost from the people buying properties to people selling. So first-time buyers will benefit far more once smaller properties are brought into the system. My question for the Government is: how quickly can we get that done? We need it done as quickly as possible.
	Finally, I come back to home condition reports. I still believe that one of the fundamental problems with buying and selling a home in this country is that people not only make offers without knowing the condition of a property, but often buy it with only a minimal survey having been done. Such a survey will not reveal potential fundamental flaws with the property.  [Interruption.] Okay, we can all shout out, buyer beware, but I believe that the Government have a responsibility to try to make sure that there are safeguards for people undertaking the most important purchase of their life. That is a different approach; Opposition Members are happy to leave it to the market, but I believe that we Members have a responsibility to our constituents in that process. We have a responsibility to bring in appropriate safeguards. Integrating home condition reports in the HIP process would achieve that, and I hope that the Government will eventually come to that point of view.

Ian Liddell-Grainger: I am staggered by some of the speeches that we have heard from Labour Members, and I am perturbed by the lack of a sense of reality that is coming through loud and clear. I want to put on record the situation in Bristol, which the Government have talked about.
	There were 15,000 voluntary packs
	sent out in Bristol,
	only 250 of which had a home condition element.[ Official Report, House of Lords, 11 October 2006; Vol. 685, c. 336.]
	None of them could be tested because there were not enough people to test them. Although there were 250 such packs, only 189 people participated, and only 90 sales were completed under the scheme, of which only 30 involved new properties. It was a shambles from beginning to end. I am sorry, but for the Government to say that they did a proper test is completely false. The words I quoted are those of Baroness Andrews, who was thenand still isUnder-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government.
	The situation has got out of hand. There is no doubt that it is getting ever more difficult for people to see the truth. Hon. Members have made some good interventions and speeches pointing out that there is total mistrust in the system. What Government in their right mind would suggest to people that they spend 4,500 to 8,000 getting a qualification when they know that it cannot be implemented, just because they have carried out a test in Bristol? The test was carried out under Government guidancethey put 320,000 into it for good measureto see whether the system worked, and it did not. Surely the Government should not only compensate the people involved but apologise to them.
	I was staggered to hear what the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr. Raynsford) said, because I know perfectly well that last year he praised the quality of the teaching, saying that everyone who got the qualification would definitely get a job, and would earn a considerable amount of moneywe have heard a figure of 70,000 bandied about, but in reality I do not think that anyone knew what the amount would be. For the Government to be stuck in this way is ridiculous.
	I would also like to take up the point on what the housing market has done. My hon. Friend the Member for Cotswold (Mr. Clifton-Brown) spoke about his experience. According to the latest Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors survey, which was done in September, prices have continued to fall in England and Wales, when compared with prices in the same month in 2006. Some 73 per cent. of the respondents indicated a decrease in the number of three-bedroom or larger properties coming on to the market. The biggest decreases were in East Anglia, where there was a decrease of 87 per cent., and in the west midlands, where there was a decrease of 82 per cent. I am sorry to tell the Government that claiming that this scheme has not affected the market is fundamentally flawed, and they cannot have it both ways. They were warned by the Oxford Economics forecast in 2006 that this situation would occur and, to put it crudely, the chickens have come home to roost. It is fundamentally wrong for Labour Members to say that that is not the case.
	The history of the scheme has been a catalogue of disasters because nobody on the Government Front Bench could agree what should be in the packs in the first place. I am not fundamentally against having some form of energy test on my house, and I am perturbed that my hon. Friend the Member for Cotswold said that he did not think it was right. My property is double-glazed throughout. It has solar panels and water butts to collect rainwater. I happen to believe in such a test, but how do I get somebody to be responsible for the report? As things stand, if one sues a HIP provider, one has no recourse.
	It has been rightly pointed out that it is up to the buyer to make up their mind and not for the seller to tell them what the case is, because there is no recourse against the seller. If they leave the country, divorce, split up with someone or go on to benefits, how would the buyer get any money back? They would not be able to do so. We should examine how to provide a report on energy efficiency, but we should not do it in a way that costs more and more money.
	The other thing that I find iniquitous is the fact that this scheme started in August, with no recourse to Government or Parliament. The Opposition have been forced to demand this debate to bring it to the Government's attention. They have sneaked it out when we were all on holidaythe rugby had not even started thenand that is fundamentally wrong. They cannot sneak out a flawed system pretending that it will work when everything says that it will not.
	The hon. Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts) made a valid point that the housing market is not perfect. I know that because I used to build houses, but I do not believe that the right approach is to make the system more complicated. I fundamentally disagree with him, because his method would make it far more complicated.
	One of the things that I have always admired is the Scottish system of missives. When buying a house one goes to one's advocate and signs an undertaking. One is not allowed to gazump or break that, because if one does, one loses 10 per cent. of the contract value, whatever that may be. That is a sensible approachI have bought and sold houses in Scotland for various family reasons and have found that it works well. There is no leeway in that market. Why can we not explore that approach? Instead of imposing more conditions on people, we could use an existing system. I believe, although I may be wrong about this, that the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Paul Holmes) said that the system in Germany works well. Let us explore what we can do, without trying to reinvent the wheel.

Clive Betts: Does the hon. Gentleman understand that one of the problems with the Scottish system, about which there are complaints, is that because people have to put in a bid for a property that they must stand by if it is accepted, everyone who puts in a bid must do a condition survey in advance? That multiplies the amount of surveys being done and the cost to people, particularly to those whose bids are not accepted and who have simply wasted their money.

Ian Liddell-Grainger: I thank the hon. Gentleman for that interesting point, which was eloquently made by my hon. Friend the Member for Cotswold. It is up to the buyer, the mortgage lender and the solicitor to satisfy themselves. I would not sell or buy a house unless I was totally happy with the system and with what I was doing. Nor would I allow anyone else to do it. I do not think that the Government should hold the hands of every person in this country when they buy or sell a house. We should let the market decidethat point has been madebut let us have a system that works. I cannot agree with the hon. Gentleman.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: I do not think that the House would want to be misinformed. The Scottish system has recently been upgraded, so that now one must put in an expression of interest. All those expressions of interest are then sifted by the buyer, who accepts one offer. That offer is binding, subject only to survey, and so the system of all the buyers having to do a survey is no longer current in Scotland.

Ian Liddell-Grainger: I thank my hon. Friend for pulling me up. The system has changed. It is a little while since I bought a house, so I am grateful to my hon. Friend for clearing that up. I still disagree with the hon. Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe, but I take my hon. Friend's points on board. He is qualified.
	In conclusion, the Government have a responsibility. HIP providers say that if the scheme goes, people will be made redundant. People have already lost money. Estate agents still do not know what is going on. There is uncertainty in the market, which has changed. All that is the Government's responsibility. I hope that the Minister will make it clear tonight that it is not acceptable for the Government to have got a sector of our community into such a situation. The scheme is fundamentally flawed and has no legitimacy at all. If hon. Members do not think that I am right, they should listen to people such as solicitors and mortgage lenders, who all say the sameit is not working.

Douglas Carswell: The evidence is so overwhelming that I shall be brief. Home information packs are a monument to incompetent government. The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, the National Association of Estate Agents, the Council of Mortgage Lenders, and even the Government's own Better Regulation Commission have been critical of HIPs. Even the Consumers Association, which was originally a supporter of the packs, said that
	the new 'half-HIP'
	which lacks a home condition report
	will be a useless but a very expensive waste of time.
	In evidence to the House of Lords, the National Association of Estate Agents stated:
	There are many other ways of improving the home buying process but HIPs will not achieve this. . . HIPs will actually have an adverse effect on the market. Our independent research indicates that a significant number of potential sellers will think twice before marketing their property if they have to consider paying for a HIP . . . The net result would be a reduction in supply.
	The big problem in housing is constraints on supply. Anything that further constrains supply will only exacerbate the problems that we have with housing.
	Recent research carried out by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors draws a direct link between the introduction of HIPs and the decline in instructions. Respondents to the RICS survey recorded an average fall in new instructions of 37 per cent.
	The Government have done more than anyone to build roadblocks to home ownership. They have restricted the right to buy. They have driven up council tax by turning it into a stealth tax. Now they have introduced HIPsa further constraint on supply. How can Ministers claim that HIPs will improve home buying or home selling, when they will do nothing to address issues such as gazumping? If the Government wish to be creative about solving the problems, they should look, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater (Mr. Liddell-Grainger) suggested, at some of the ideas north of the border. HIPs are not the answer to the problem.
	The HIPs debacle, which is still unfolding, has been a test case of how not to legislate. It has been a brilliant illustration of how not to improve home buying and home selling. Home information packs represent yet another Government initiative desperately searching for a rationale. Like that other huge, monstrous Government extravagance, ID cards, HIPs are a solution looking for a problem. It is right and proper that the Conservatives are committing to the abolition of HIPs.

James Duddridge: It is always a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich (Mr. Carswell), who made an excellent speech. It is also always a pleasure to follow an Essex MP.
	The motion refers to both stamp duty and HIPs. Government Members may be interested to know that following the Conservative party's announcement on stamp duty, I have not received a single letter supporting the Conservative party's position. That is, of course, due to the Government's mishandling of the postal strike, so I have received only e-mails of support. One young couple stopped me on Sunday morningI am sure that hon. Members will sympathise with thiswhen I was out and about trying to do my business with a young child in tow. One of them said, You don't mind if I have a word. I hesitated before saying, Of course, carry on. They explained how they had been Labour supporters but not Labour votersthey had not bothered to voteand how, because of the stamp duty change, they had decided to vote for the first time. I am looking forward to receiving my mailbag from the Royal Mail in Southend, once the situation returns to normal.
	I have received a lot of correspondence about HIPs. I shall begin by returning to my intervention on the Minister for Housing during her opening remarks. She wrote to me on 26 June 2007 following some correspondence from my constituent, Anthony Bennett of Southend, about energy performance certificates:
	When a property is first placed on the market, the EPC contained in the HIP cannot be more than 12 months old. This is a transitional measure, pending the result of the consultation on the allowed age of an EPC, which will be conducted over the summer.
	In replying to my intervention, the Minister seemed to indicate that that consultation had not even happened. Will the Under-Secretary confirm whether the letter of 27 June was inaccurate or whether the Minister's comment was not a fair reflection of what happened? Was the consultation over the summer abandoned and kicked into the long grass because of other problems with HIPs, or did it take place and reveal something that the Department needs to spend more time working on?
	I have also received a number of letters from people who are training to become HIPs inspectors. I have not got this constituent's authorisation to mention their name, but they stated:
	I'm just a bit of political roadkill that no one gives a damn about.
	Some of the anger related to all politicians, but the Government introduced the initiative. There were certain EU directives around the EPC that were absolutely essential, but the Government added to the problem. The situation is an unnecessary disaster of the Government's creation. One of my constituents spent more than 10,000 training as a home inspector, which is significantly more than the sums mentioned earlier.
	I have also received correspondence from local solicitors. Charles Latham is a partner in Tolhurst Fisher. He is a respected gentleman who has served as mayor of Southend, although he is no longer directly involved in local political life. He wrote to me and stated:
	I do seriously believe that the introduction of the packs will have a serious effect on the housing market which in turn is bound to have an effect on the overall economy of the country.
	He has 25 years' experience of conveyancing, and he has experience as an estate agent. He continued:
	the Government has watered down the contents of the pack to make it, frankly, of little use to any interested purchaser.
	The Government have done neither one thing nor the other, and we have the worst-case scenarioa fudge between the two, which will not work. The energy report could have been done separately, which would have been simpler than gold-plating EU directives and adding to regulation. Both Government and Opposition Members care passionately about the environment, but there are different elements to it. For example, the environmental impact of flooding is especially important in Southend. Even if we were to introduce a home information pack, different people want different things in it. In Southend, environmental protection is, perhaps, more important than energy efficiency.
	The right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr. Raynsford) clearly has a vested interest in the subject both through his entry in the Register of Members' Interests and, more importantly, through his experience as a Minister. He pointed out that the housing market system has grown organically over a period of time, which is how any changes should have been introduced. If there is a market value to energy certificates, and if there is a market value for the buyer in providing a home condition report, why were people not buying such things to start with? It would be much better for the market to lead the change than for the Government to do so.
	The hon. Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts) said that the survey done by the seller could be used by the buyer. I have experience as a retail banker in the UKadmittedly four or five years ago; legislation might have changedand the hon. Gentleman's recollection of advice given to the Select Committee is certainly not my recollection of the legal position in the United Kingdom. For there to be legal recourse to the survey, it would be important not only for the buyer to have paid for it, but for it to be addressed also to the mortgage provider, if it were to have any validity. Of course, the home condition report refers only to a particular type of survey; many people will want to do a much wider survey, so will end up having to pay double anyway. That does not make any sense whatever.
	While looking at the BBC website, I came across one provider of HIPs called HipHipHooray.com. It is poetically named, but given that HIPs have been a disaster rather than a cause for celebration, perhaps that provider should be taken to trading standards for implying that they are anything to be happy about. The HIPs process, managed by this Government, has been a complete and unmitigated disaster that will continue. There is still an awful lot of uncertainty.

Charles Walker: Does my hon. Friend share my view that there is no appetite left in Government to bring the issue forward? If they were honest and up front, they would ditch the disaster now and get on with other things for the next two and a half years.

James Duddridge: If they were a bolder, brighter Government looking forward not backward, they would certainly ditch the idea. The only problem is that that would be simply too embarrassingbut the people who suffer are our and their constituents.
	The hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Andrew Miller)or should I say for Ellesmere Port, Neston and LMS; if the company has not been mentioned in the House of Commons before, it will be pleased with its number of mentions in this debatesuggested that we found it laughable that jobs might be lost. The suggestion that hon. Members of any party would think that someone losing their job was a laughable matter is horrific. What is laughable is the belief that sustainable jobs are created by overburdening Government regulation. The Government set up HIPs and encouraged people to get the qualification, which was demanded not by the market but by the EU and Government bureaucrats; those jobs were not sustainable. If there was laughter on the Conservative Benches, it was due to the lack of a grip of basic economics rather than the terrible situation of the LMS employees, who I am sure are trying to make a good job of a very bad situation.

Bob Neill: This debate has been lively and interestingparticularly interesting to me because HIPs figured large in the by-election that brought me to this House not too long ago. By way of preliminary, I should say that I could not find a single person on the streets of Bromley and Chislehurst who thought that HIPs were a good idea then, and nothing has happened since to suggest otherwise. I spent Saturday morning on the streets of Bromley and Chislehurst, and I might add that the view remained firmly the same. There was, however, a great deal of support for my party's proposal on stamp duty and making home ownership more accessible for first-time buyers.
	That said, it is a pretty worrying state of affairs that is indicative, perhaps, of the Government's situation, that the Minister for Housing [Interruption.] I am delighted to see her return to the Chamber, dead on cue. It is pretty worrying that she felt obliged to begin her defence of the Government's policy by recycling a joke that she had told before. That is becoming standard for the Labour party as far as this issue is concerned. With respect, it is indicative of the enthusiasm that Government Front Benchers feel for the policy; it is probably the same enthusiasm there was on the Australian rugby team's flight home. They are trying to defend something that they know does not have any legs.
	We have had some useful interventions from Members of all parties, who made specific points based on a great deal of experience and strong feeling, on both sides of the argument. The hon. Member for Chesterfield (Paul Holmes) made a valid and legitimate point at the beginning of his speech regarding the importance of putting the results of the market testing and surveys in the public domain. That links to things that were said later on in the debate. It is quite impossible to have the sort of rational consideration that Labour Members, including the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr. Raynsford), called for without putting that information into the public domain. The only conclusion one can draw about why the Government have consistently failed to do so, and why, even after the Minister's speech there is still no timetable for it, is that they know that that evidence will undermine their case. One is forced to ask what they are hiding.
	Thereafter, the hon. Member for Chesterfield performed the well-known Liberal Democrat trick of sitting on the fence and getting splinters in uncomfortable places. With respect to him, it is no good simply saying that we wring our hands about the affordability and costs of home ownership for first-time buyers. The simple truth is that our proposals on stamp duty would assist something in the order of nine out of 10 first-time buyers. Until his party comes up with something that would have that degree of impact on first-time buyers, it is better for him not to criticiseat least until he has something constructive to say.

Paul Holmes: I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman could explain in some detail exactly how he would refute the arguments of the economists in  The Daily Telegraph on Monday who said that the Conservatives' proposals would drive up house prices to the detriment of first-time buyers, and not help them at all.

Bob Neill: It is often said that if one puts any number of economists from end to end, one can get a different answer for each day of the year, and probably each hour of the day. The average first-time buyer would save about 1,700. That is real money and a real saving, and until the hon. Gentleman comes up with a real answer, there is not much point in having the argument.

Clive Betts: With respect to the hon. Gentleman, he did not answer the question. Has he got any evidence at all from any independent expertswe know that his party is very fond of thoseshowing that there will be no impact on house prices by cutting stamp duty in the way he proposes?

Bob Neill: If we assist and encourage first-time buyers, of course that will be beneficial to them. It is a bit rich for Labour Members to talk about independent evidence when, as I pointed out, they are the ones withholding independent evidence on this issue.

Charles Walker: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Our party is talking about giving 1,700 back to first-time buyers. Your party is talking about taking hundreds and hundreds of additional

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I will not be referred to and drawn into this debate.

Bob Neill: Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am grateful for my hon. Friend's point, which is, as ever, well made.
	I know that the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich, for whom I have every personal respect, feels passionately about this issue, and he has been very much involved with it. I have to say that I come to a different conclusion from him. He knows that, and it will not come as any great surprise. It was interesting that he made the point, which is perfectly true, that to start with, the home condition reports were at the heart of this scheme. His gripe is really with his own Government on this matter. The reality is that once the Government scrapped the home condition reports, they took the heart and guts out of the scheme and made it an empty shell. If he has an understandable grievance, it lies with his Front Benchers rather than anyone else here.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Mr. Syms), who again has great knowledge and experience in these matters, made a thoughtful and constructive speech, and I was grateful to him for the points he made. As someone who comes from London, I especially take on board his point about making better use of existing stock. The right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich and I were having a discussion about that elsewhere earlier on today, and it is a timely reminder of the importance of that issue.
	With respect to the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Andrew Miller), he appears to have a slightly schizophrenic view of the market. He said that the housing market was free but urged more regulation on some matters. My hon. Friends have already made the point that the market cannot be efficient if it is over-regulated.
	My hon. Friends the Members for Broxbourne (Mr. Walker), for Bridgwater (Mr. Liddell-Grainger) and for Harwich (Mr. Carswell) made useful and well-thought-through contributions. The hon. Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts) is one of the last remaining true believers in HIPs. It is touching to watch him and the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich trying to defend that line.
	An air of unreality pervaded several contributions from Labour Members. Some interventions from hon. Members who are not now present suggested that they had never looked at a set of deeds. Trying to rubbish our proposals for first-time buyers does not therefore hold water, as any trainee solicitor would tell them. It is as simple as that. I was grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend, East (James Duddridge) for his observations. He prayed in aid a gentleman whom we both know to be a respected member of his professionsomeone who has probably seen far more deeds than most of the parliamentary Labour party and therefore speaks with rather more authority on the topic.

Ian Liddell-Grainger: It is also notable that the mortgage lenders, solicitors, banks and everybody who is involved in house-buying are anti the scheme because they know full well that it is unsustainable. As time goes on, it gets increasingly complicated and the Government get into more of a mess.

Bob Neill: My hon. Friend is right. The Government are culpable for the effect on the marketno amount of flannel gets around the destabilising effectsand for the position of those who bought a pig in a poke and took a commercial risk by setting up firms as HIPs providers. I regret the fact that the Government misled them, but that is what happened. If there is, regrettably, a commercial consequence to abandoning the schemewhich will doubtless happen in due coursethe Government must shoulder the responsibility for leading them up the garden path. We will take no lectures on that from Labour Members.
	Every supporter of the scheme has crept away from it. It is a little like the Haydn symphony in which all the musicians blow out their candles and disappear, with only one left at the endtwo in the case that we are considering. Even the Consumers Association, which was originally a great supporter of the scheme, makes the point that, without the home condition report, it
	will be a useless but a very expensive waste of time.
	That comment was made by the Government's chief ally in the initial stages.
	The Government have not allowed the House to scrutinise the secondary legislation adequately or revealed any of the material on which we could reach a considered view. The House did not get a chance to consider and vote on the extension to three-bedroom homes until after the measure had been pushed through. Why are the Government scared to put the material before us? It is because the emperoreven the rather new emperorhas no clothes. It is surprising that the Government did not take the opportunity of a change of some personnel in the Department to bury the scheme before it became an embarrassment to them. That is their error because we do not intend to let them off the hook.
	The tragedy is that HIPs are a distraction from the real task of creating houses. They will not get a single new home built for anyone. They are a side show of the worst and most dogmatic kind.

James Duddridge: Is my hon. Friend as worried as I am that some elderly people in large houses, who would otherwise consider downsizing, thus putting more accommodation on the market for hard-working families, will not do that because of the complexity of the proposed legislation, which will do the opposite of what the Government suggest?

Bob Neill: My hon. Friend makes a valuable point. It is all very well for Government Members to laughperhaps they should go and speak to some elderly householders. I know that my hon. Friend does in his constituency, as I have in mine, where we have exactly the same situation. The scheme is a potential block on mobility. It is in the interests of the efficient use of the housing stock to remove barriers to mobility rather than imposing extra costs.
	The debate comes back to that air of unreality, which suggests that somehow there is a free lunch and no cost to the scheme. Ultimately, the cost of the HIPs is going to be passed on. Never mind where it falls legally, at the end of the day it will be passed on in the transaction costs one way or another. HIPs are another barrier to home ownership. We shall sweep that barrier away and, with our stamp duty proposals, remove a separate significant barrier.

Clive Betts: The hon. Gentleman is talking about costs. Will he identify a single cost in the HIP arrangement that would not have to be met as part of the buying and selling system for houses under the previous arrangements? All the costs, on the searches and the energy performance certificate, would have to be met anyway.

Bob Neill: What about the duplication of surveyors' fees for a start? The hon. Gentleman ought to understand thathis party is good at double counting. He should have recognised that when it was coming.
	The simple truth is that the Government seem to be wedded to a piece of dogma, when all the evidence goes to the contrary. It flies in the face of belief that the Government should have the gall to rubbish anyone who happens to disagree with them as being a vested interest, yet be perfectly happy to pray in aid those who might have a vested interest on the other side. That is not honest politics.

Nick Raynsford: As the hon. Gentleman is interested in double counting, will he tell the House what the costs are to the individual who is unable to proceed with a house purchase because it falls through after he or she has commissioned surveys and searches and paid legal fees, when those costs are all aborted? What is the hon. Gentleman's party going to do about the 1 million a day that is lost by consumers because of the inefficiencies in the current system?

Bob Neill: The sadness is that the right hon. Gentleman forgets that the scheme that he was so fond of does nothing about gazumping or those vendors who do not have the wherewithal. Those costs are an element of the flaws in the current scheme.
	The Government's defence is about as credible as when the late George Davis stood up and told the Old Bailey that he happened to be minding his own business walking past the Bank of Cyprus one day, when a chap he had not seen for five years ran past and stuck a sawn-off shotgun in his hand. That defence did not have any credibility as I recall, and neither does the Government's, which is shot through with holes.

Charles Walker: Government Members may think that 400 is not a lot of money, but my constituents think that it is a great deal of money. HIPs are another Labour tax on hard-working men, women and families, so is it not about time that the Government admitted it?

Bob Neill: The point is well made and shows the lack of contact between Government Members and the outside world. Yes, for my constituents 300 is a lot of money. The 1,700 to 2,000 saving that we will introduce through the stamp duty reduction is also a lot of money, especially for young couples trying to get on the housing ladder.

Anne Main: The other thing is the disproportionate effect of having to pay the whole cost on people who have shared equity in a home. They might own only part of a home, but they have to pay the whole cost on selling it. That is also a disproportionate cost and possibly stops mobility.

Bob Neill: The point is exceedingly well made. Mobility is a key issue, as we have already discussed.
	I want to give the Minister time to reply. The Government have stuck to the policy, despite all the contrary evidence, with a degree of rigidity and dogmatism that would have done the Bourbons of 19th century-France proud, and we all know what happened to them. The way the Government refuse to accept reality is like a cross between Pius IX and Chairman Mao's red guards. The tragedy is that the people in this country who find hurdles set in the way of home ownership will have to wait longer than we would wish them to before a Conservative Government can get rid of this impediment to home ownership.

Iain Wright: This has been a fascinating debate. I greatly enjoyed the contribution of the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps). This is his first Opposition day debate as a Front Bencher, and mine as well. Watching him and the Minister for Housing clash was rather like watching Hartlepool United thrashing Lincoln City 5-2 last night, with my right hon. Friend as the hat-trick hero Joel Porter. I am afraid that we are not going to see a Tory victory here this afternoonrather like in Ealing.
	The hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield said that HIPs were harshly implemented, and another hon. Member who is no longer in the Chamber said that their implementation had been botched. In fact, we have seen a smooth and measured roll-out of the process on three and four-bedroom properties since August. I can do no better than quote a number of people who have been involved in the process. Tim Barton, of the estate agents Drewett Neate, said on 24 August:
	We have encountered no problems with the provision of the packs. Our provider was ready and there have hardly been any teething problems. The reality is that the introduction has gone so smoothly that it has hardly been noticed...I can quote two cases already where the registered title element has revealed what could have caused major difficulties later on. In one, the registered boundaries were significantly different from those told to us by the vendor and in the other the property was covered by restrictions the vendor was not aware of. HIPs are already proving their usefulness and two sales that might have hit the buffers later on have been put on the right tracks from the start. Now that people are becoming aware of HIPs, they are accepting them as a legal requirement that's part of the property transaction process and see them as a very minor additional cost to the expensive business of moving. Most basic HIPs only cost around 300 plus VAT, a little more for leasehold or larger properties. Better information upfront and more clarity for the whole process has to be a good aim.

Anne Main: Will the Minister give way?

Iain Wright: No, I will not, because the hon. Lady has not been in the Chamber throughout the debate.
	To give the lenders' viewpoint, Jeremy Russ, head of marketing for Beacon Homeloan Group, says:
	From our point of view, these products could have a hugely positive impact on the house buying process if they actually stop property transactions falling through.

Charles Walker: If the Minister does not think that 400 is a lot of money, what does he think is a lot of money?

Iain Wright: The hon. Gentleman has made this point a number of times during the debate. Three hundred pounds is a lot of money, but that is already being paid in the house buying process. HIPs will stop duplication, improve efficiency and ensure that the house buying process is smoother than it would otherwise have been.

Charles Walker: If the increase in cost is marginal, where is it coming from?

Iain Wright: I shall deal later with energy performance certificates, which were sadly lacking from Opposition Members' contributions this afternoon.
	HIPs will help to reduce the risk of problems emerging laterthe problems that can cause chains to collapse, wasting money, time and energyby providing timely information such as local searches at the beginning of the home buying process.
	The hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield tried to give the impression that the housing market had come crashing to a halt with the introduction of HIPs, but that is simply not right. If the evidence were consistent with the Opposition's argument, we would have seen a high jump in the number of properties being put on the market in June and Julymuch higher than in the comparable period last yearprior to the introduction of HIPs for four-bedroom properties, and it would have been followed by a sharp fall in August. That did not happen, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr. Raynsford) pointed out when he most effectively exposed the Opposition's economic illiteracy.

Ian Liddell-Grainger: I read out the statement from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, which showed that house buying had dropped. That was its latest statement. Would the Minister care to comment? Has it got its figures wrong? Are the Government saying that it has done its survey incorrectly?

Iain Wright: No, I am saying that most serious commentators are clear that interest rate changes, house prices, stock market uncertainty, concerns about sub-prime lending across the Atlantic and the Northern Rock issue have determined the housing market over the summer. Against that background, it is to be expected that property owners might think twice about putting their property on the market, and that buyers might think twice before making substantial investments.
	I can do no better than quote Martin Ellis, the Halifax chief economist, who said on 15 September:
	The market remains underpinned by sound fundamentals. The UK economy continues to expand at a robust pace, employment is at a record high and supply is tight. These factors are the drivers of the market and will continue to support house prices.
	The hon. Members for Welwyn Hatfield and for Broxbourne (Mr. Walker) mentioned the link between the revaluation of council tax and the introduction of HIPs. This conspiracy theory is complete claptrap. I look forward to debating with those hon. Gentlemen at some future date the equally credible notion that John F. Kennedy and Elvis are living together on the moon. It is a complete fantasy and an example of Conservative party scaremongering.
	I also want to deal with the No way to 10k quote of the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield. The hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) said that this gag has been used before, but a good gag is a good gag and I will continue to use it. I quote from inside housing, I believe:
	No way to 10k is not actually about 10,000 homes. It just happened to rhyme.
	I am a proud member of the Government and of the Labour party, but my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris), who is no longer in his place, suggested another rhyme. I bear no responsibility for this appalling piece of poetry, but instead of No way to 10k, it should be, Hip, hip, hooray; let's have 6k [Interruption.] I was about to say that bad poetry seems to cross the House.
	In contrast to the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield, the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Paul Holmes) made a welcome and encouraging speech, for which I am grateful. We are monitoring the impact of HIPs, as he suggested, and we will continue to do so. We are meeting stakeholders later this week to continue that approach and my right hon. Friend the Minister and I are most willing to meet the hon. Gentleman to continue to update him and his party. I hope that that will encourage him and shape his voting intentions later this evening.

Paul Holmes: I thank the Minister and welcome his comments about inter-party talks, but do the Government have any plans to return to the House in one or two months to update us about their review? What is the time scale?

Iain Wright: The Government's intention is always to keep the House informed. The hon. Gentleman raised serious questions about roll-out and related detailed issues. I can confirm that the average time taken to produce a HIP in September was four to five days and that the average cost of the HIP was, in contrast to the Conservative party's scaremongering figure of 1,000, only 300 to 350 plus VAT. More than 102,000 energy performance certificates have been lodged since 1 August and the average time taken to produce an EPC is between 2.5 and 4 days.
	The whole House will accept that the knowledge of my right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich in this area of policy is second to none, and I pay tribute to his articulate speech tonight. He mentioned how inefficient, archaic and often duplicatory procedures were costing customers 1 million a day. He knows that home buyers and sellers have repeatedly stated that they find the process confusing, stressful and opaque. That point was also well made by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts).
	Many people complain about the lack of information on what is probably one of the biggest transactions of their lives. HIPs have rightly been seen as a first step in the process of reform. They provide an opportunity to improve the lot of home buyers and sellers. They are bringing greater transparency and competition into home buying and selling and, for the first time, energy ratings on homes are part of the energy performance certificate.
	I greatly enjoyed the contribution of the hon. Member for Bridgwater (Mr. Liddell-Grainger), who is a real gentleman and an accountant. We do not have enough accountants in the House, in my opinion. He said that the whole process was, if I quote him correctly, sneaked out, but that clearly was not right. In her statement to Parliament on 22 May, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, West (Ruth Kelly), then Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, announced that the start date for home information packs would be 1 August and said:
	We will extend to smaller properties as rapidly as possible, as sufficient energy assessors become ready to work. As we see the number of accredited assessors rise, so more properties will be included in the system.[ Official Report, 22 May 2007; Vol. 460, c. 1108.]
	The decision set out in August therefore implemented that parliamentary announcement. Revised regulations were also laid before Parliament on 11 June, following the commencement order for four-bedroom property sales on 8 June. We also published a statement on 11 June setting out the details of the implementation proposals. It is therefore simply untrue to say that the process was sneaked out.
	The hon. Member for Poole (Mr. Syms) made some extremely fine points, and made good use of his experience on the 2003 Housing Bill Committee. I disagreed with almost everything he said, but he said it beautifully and with eloquence. His contribution improved the quality of the debate. His point about existing housing stock that is not in the market was pertinent and well made. I would like to reflect further on that and discuss it with colleagues. If I have time, I shall mention related points later. His point about local authority involvement in producing some sort of energy rating is somewhat at odds with the position of Conservative Front Benchers, but I welcome his contribution.
	I find it astonishing that something as important as energy performance certificates merited seven words in the Opposition's motion, and that hardly any Opposition Member mentioned the importance of EPCs, with the exception of the hon. Members for Bridgwater and for Rochford and Southend, East (James Duddridge). In an intervention, the hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr. Goodwill) suggested that people could use gas bills to cut carbon emissions. I admire and like the hon. Gentleman, who has close links with Hartlepool, but I found his comments extremely complacent. Ed Matthew, Friends of the Earth climate campaigner, has said:
	The Government is to be warmly congratulated for keeping its nerve and expanding the adoption of Energy Performance Certificates. Critics would do well to remember that without them there is absolutely no hope of making significant progress on low-carbon homes and tackling climate change. This is not red tape but real information that will help people to find out what they can do to make their homes energy-efficient.
	That quote is backed up by the evidence and expectations of real people. YouGov research confirms that our approach is right: 71 per cent. of people want more information about the energy efficiency of the home they are buying; 77 per cent. said that it would influence their decision to buy; and nearly half, 47 per cent., said that they would make their home more energy efficient if they had more information. If only one fifth of homeowners made the basic changes set out in their EPC, they could save about 100 million a year on their energy bills, and cut carbon emissions equivalent to taking 100,000 cars off the road. That is precisely why all the green groups agree that HIPs with EPCs will help families to cut their fuel bills and help to reduce the 27 per cent. of carbon emissions that come from our homes. The Conservative party does not seem to agree, however, and I am disappointed by that.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Andrew Miller) made a great speech, standing up for businesses in his constituency, and there is nothing wrong with that. He highlighted the importance of employment and the need to reduce costs in the home-buying process.
	Interestingly, the hon. Member for Broxbourne advocated an 11-month parliamentary recess. He praised the current housing market, which is largely a result of the decade of economic stability presided over by this Government. He seemed to forget that bit. He also failed to mention the negative equity, 15 per cent. interest rates and record repossessions

Patrick McLoughlin: rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.
	 Question, That the Question be now put,  put and agreed to.

Question put accordingly, That the original words stand part of the Question:
	 The House divided: Ayes 166, Noes 363.

Question accordingly negatived.
	 Question, That the proposed words be there added,  put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 31 (Questions on amendments):
	 The House divided: Ayes 347, Noes 169.

Question accordingly agreed to.
	 Resolved,
	That this House believes that the ongoing reform of the home buying and selling process should revolve around the interests of the consumer and environmental sustainability; considers that the most important thing for the housing market is macroeconomic stability including sound public finances; therefore further believes that unfunded tax cuts including on stamp duty would be irresponsible; further believes that increased house building to deliver more affordable homes is essential to help first time buyers; further considers that the introduction of Home Information Packs and Energy Performance Certificates can improve the process of home buying and selling for consumers and provide them with vital information about the energy efficiency of homes and practical suggestions about how to cut fuel bills and reduce carbon emissions; and notes that the Government continues to work with industry to consider further reform of the home buying and selling process in order to maximise the benefits for consumers.

Alistair Carmichael: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Have you received any indication from the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs that he intends to come to the House to correct what he said on Monday in his statement on foot and mouth? He said that compensation schemes in Scotland would be the responsibility of the Scottish Government. That is not correct; there is a 1999 concordat between the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Scottish Executive, and the Scotland Act 1998 (Concurrent Functions) Order 1999 states that responsibility for compensation lies with the Secretary of State. Surely he should return to the House to explain what he intends to do to compensate Scotland's livestock industry for the negligence of his Department.

Madam Deputy Speaker: I hear what the hon. Member says, and Members on the Treasury Bench will have done so, too, but I am in no position to respond in the affirmative to his point.

Nick Herbert: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. In May, the Government announced an organisational review of the Ministry of Justice. It is a fundamental review, and today the Ministry's permanent secretary issued an update on that review, which could result in the splitting of the Ministry and in major changes to the National Offender Management Service. That update was given not to the House, and not by a Minister, but through an announcement on a website. What guidance can you give me about the appropriateness of that, bearing in mind the fact that the Ministry of Justice is charged with delivering the Prime Minister's declared agenda of strengthening Parliament and the ability of the House to hold the Government to account? Is it not quite wrong that the statement was made by the permanent secretary, and on a Government website?

Madam Deputy Speaker: As the hon. Member will know, the Speaker expects Ministers to make statements to the House. Members on the Treasury Bench will have heard what the hon. Gentleman said. I can add nothing further to that.

DELEGATED LEGISLATION

Ordered,
	That the Housing Act 2004 (Commencement No. 9) (England and Wales) Order 2007 (S.I., 2007, No. 2471), dated 17th August 2007, and the Secure Training Centre (Amendment) Rules 2007 (S.I., 2007, No. 1709), dated 13th June 2007, be referred to a Delegated Legislation Committee. [Siobhain McDonagh.]

NORTHERN IRELAND GRAND COMMITTEE

Ordered,
	That
	(1) the matter of Youth Offending in Northern Ireland be referred to the Northern
	Ireland Grand Committee;
	(2) the Committee shall meet at Westminster on Tuesday 23rd October at half past
	four o'clock; and
	(3) at that sitting
	(a) the Committee shall take questions under Standing Order No. 110 (Northern Ireland Grand Committee (questions for oral answer)), and shall then consider the matter referred to it under paragraph (1) above;
	(b) the Chairman shall interrupt proceedings not later than two and a half hours after the commencement of proceedings on the matter referred to the Committee; and
	(c) at the conclusion of those proceedings, a motion for the adjournment of the Committee may be made by a Minister of the Crown, pursuant to paragraph (5) of Standing Order No. 116 (Northern Ireland Grand Committee (sittings)). [Siobhain McDonagh.]

PETITION

Family Justice System

John Hemming: I have an example of egregious behaviour by the family justice system to present.
	The petition states:
	The Petition of a British Citizen
	Declares that a Local Authority has recently told a mother that she will not be allowed contact with her adopted child if she continues to protest outside the Family Court.
	The Petitioner therefore requests that the House of Commons urges the government to legislate to prevent Local Authorities from using control over contact with their children to prevent parents from protesting about the unfairness of the Family Justice System in England and Wales.
	And the Petitioner remains, etc.
	 To lie upon the Table.

PROPOSALS FOR A WRITTEN CONSTITUTION

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn. [Siobhain McDonagh.]

Keith Vaz: I am most grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for allowing me the opportunity to raise the Government's proposals on a written constitution in this Adjournment debate. This debate follows on from the debate on 22 May initiated by my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen) in the light of the then Chancellor of the Exchequer's commitment to introduce a constitutional reform Bill.
	I am delighted to see the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Mr. Wills), on the Front Bench. His willingness to consult as widely as possible with the public and key groups on the issues of British identity and constitutional reform is well known, and I am pleased that he has been given responsibility for this very important matter. I hope that my hon. Friend will be able to provide the House with greater detail since the Prime Minister's statement on constitutional reform on 3 July. I know that the House is keen to know how we can progress towards a British Bill of Rights and Responsibilities and possibly a written constitution. Some consider matters of constitutional reform dry subjects for academic lawyers. I disagree. I believe that this is one of the most exciting areas of Government policy and I am sure that the Minister agrees.
	This issue is of course part of a historic process of constitutional reform that began on this island almost 800 years ago with the Greater Charter of Freedomsthe Magna Cartacodifying the rights of the individual against the power of the state. Even today, the Magna Carta informs current key political debates, and I am sure that the Minister has a copy of it with him for this debate.
	The Charter speaks to us through centuries of history. Its 29th clause states:
	No Freeman shall be taken or imprisoned...or be outlawed, or exiled, or any other wise destroyed...We not pass upon him, nor condemn him, but by lawful judgment of his Peers, or by the Law of the Land.
	I apologise for the lack of political correctness, but it is a direct quotation from the Magna Carta.
	That principle, which this country has defended against internal and external threats for centuries, is still a matter for profound political debate. Only yesterday, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Ian Blair, appeared before the Home Affairs Committee, which I have the privilege of chairing, to make the case for powers to detain people before charge for more than 28 days. That is one of the many issues that, as I will outline, lead me to be a strong supporter of a single Bill of Rights and Responsibilities. How do we ensure that this issue is discussed not only by the elite, but by representatives of groups from all over the country?
	Constitutional reform has been one of the major achievements of the Government since 1997devolution to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, a Mayor and Assembly for London, the process of removing hereditary peers from the House of Lords, the creation of a Ministry of Justice, the creation of a Supreme Court, the creation of a body to appoint judges independently, and the incorporation of the European convention on human rights via the Human Rights Act 1998. This has been the collective work of the Government. However, I should like to recognise in particular two Ministers who have been at the forefront of the processLord Irvine of Lairg and Lord Falcolner of Thoroton, who were both distinguished Lord Chancellors.
	All these reforms have been substantive changes to our unwritten and ancient constitutional tapestry, and have been remarkably successful. Even more remarkable is the lack of attention that these reforms attracted. That is, perhaps, a measure of their success. It is difficult to imagine rolling back devolution or re-installing the hereditary peers, although I understand that the Conservative party is committed to scrapping the Human Rights Act, despite presumably remaining part of the European convention on human rights.
	The convention is one of the greatest accomplishments of the finest British legal minds. While some look back to regressing into a constitutional settlement that never was, the Government and the Prime Minister are right to look forward to continuing the path towards constitutional modernisation. In his first major statement to the House, the Prime Minister proposed a number of constitutional changes to improve our democracy and governance. These reforms include the removal of the royal prerogative in 12 areas, including the power to declare war, appoint judges and even choose bishops. Parliament should warmly welcome its empowerment on these and other key issues.
	However, my focus in this debate will be the suggestion by the Prime Minister that we move away from our largely unwritten constitution and towards a single document that codifies the rights and responsibilities of those living in Britain. With reference to other countries with unwritten constitutions, I understand that only New Zealand, Canada and Israel share the United Kingdom's status.
	I am a strong supporter of such a document. Britain's last Bill of Rights was forged in 1689. For the 17th century, it was a remarkable text limiting the powers of the monarch and setting out the great freedoms that we as citizens still enjoy today, such as the freedom from cruel and unusual punishments, the freedom of speech in Parliament, the freedom from taxation by royal prerogative, and the freedom to elect Members of Parliament without interference from the sovereign. These were great and fundamental freedoms, of special importance to the development of the House, but more than 300 years have passed and it is time for a new Bill of Rights, such as a Bill of Rights and Responsibilities, and for us to take the steps towards a full written constitution.
	The people of Britain hold a great sense of civic purpose, but it is not clear enough to the individual where his or her rights and duties lie, and where the Government's begin. In an age of concern about antisocial behaviour and crime, we need a document embodying the guiding values that we share as a nation. Above all, a constitution would clarify not only the collective power of the Government, but the powers of a neighbourhood, community group or family to correct antisocial behaviour. We are all stakeholders in civic society on a national, regional, local and street level. A fear is expressed in the tabloid media that the European convention on human rights is an alien document and a danger to our country. It is time to incorporate the European convention on human rights into a British written constitution, in effect bringing the convention back home.
	A constitution would allow British citizens to point to a single document containing the values, principles, rights and responsibilities that all in Britain must follow. It could be used to provide new British citizens from other countries with a sense of British identity and an understanding of British values, which is close to the heart of the Minister who has campaigned on the issues of identity and Britishness for many years.
	A constitution would state the responsibilities that go alongside those rights. To take the classic example, it would make it clear that the right to free speech goes alongside the responsibility not to incite racial hatred between groups. Beyond that, a single document could encompass the reforms, which have occurred and which will continue to occur, to our constitution. We have been fortunate that in recent memory our parliamentary process has not had to face strains and extremism that other countries have experienced to their detriment.
	My right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw), who is the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, has announced the consultation with the British public, and he has said it will begin in the autumn as requested by the Prime Minister. I am sure that his consideration of the great range of opinion will be examined carefully and thoroughly. In a recent  New Statesman interview, however, he ruled out an actual written constitution in the short term:
	I'm not against a written constitution, but I think you've got to get the building blocks in place before you get there.
	The Minister has been entrustedin my view rightlywith the onerous responsibility of putting those important building blocks in place. Although I am keen to ensure that there is no unnecessary foot-dragging in planning the way forward on such a radical innovation for the United Kingdom, I agree with the principle that the process should not be rushed before the public, the political establishment and, above all, the machinery of government are ready for such a change. It is vital that we take the British people with us.
	The consultation process is not the most important issue. I have just spoken to my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, North, who told me that people should e-mail the Minister. Millions of people could e-mail the Minister about what the new constitution should look like, but at the end of the day somebody must edit those suggestions. I hope that the Minister will clarify the key question of who will sit down and edit this great constitutional project. I believe that history proves that a national constitution works most effectively when the ultimate draftersthe wise men and womenhold legitimacy in the eyes of the country. The American constitution, for example, which was forged by the energies of the war of independence, was drafted by high-profile figures of many different political orientations and ambitions, and none, who moved towards a consensus. Even that great constitution was not perfect for a number of reasonsslavery remainedbut it endowed legitimacy on a nation that developed a great civil society. That legitimacy is needed today and for future generations. I would be grateful if the Minister were to state who will be involved in the early stages, who will be involved in the later stages and what Parliament's role will be.
	In 100 years' time, when many of today's policy debates and manifesto commitmentseven talk of a general election on 1 Novemberare long forgotten, I know that this Government's constitutional reform programme will be long remembered. I believe that that will be the key thing that people remember about these years. Is the Minister ready to be remembered as the Benjamin Franklin of a future British constitution?
	The Government have achieved muchwith not enough recognitionin bringing Britain's constitution into the 21st century, so I look forward to hearing from the Minister how the Government plan to secure the historic achievement of a written constitution. We, the people of the United Kingdom, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice and human rights, ensure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, and promote the general welfare of the British people: those few words are my version of how we should start the constitution. I look forward to hearing what the Minister's version will be.

Michael Wills: I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz) on securing this debate on a very important subject for this House and for the people of this country. He will not be surprised to hear that I share his view on the importance of these issues. He has brought to the debate a wealth of experience and distinguished service to this House and to this Government. I am grateful for the way in which he set out the arguments, because he covered most of the issues that we will have to confront and deal with as we embark on the programme that the Prime Minister set out to the House on 3 June this year.
	This is part of a process. Since 1997, the Government have been embarked on a radical programme of constitutional renewal. The next stage, which is set out in the Green Paper, The Governance of Britain, seeks to forge a new relationship between Government and the citizen and to continue the journey towards a new constitutional settlement that entrusts Parliament and the people with more power. It is important to note that the Green Paper is not a blueprint but a route map that we will navigate in conversation with the British people. We are planning a far-ranging programme of consultation involving a whole range of mechanisms that we hope will produce a settlement which, as my right hon. Friend suggested, will be owned by the British people themselves; it will not be sustainable unless we do so.
	My right hon. Friend spent a large part of his speech talking about a Bill of Rights and Responsibilities. The Government remain fully committed to the universal declaration of human rights made by the United Nations on behalf of the free world at the conclusion of the second world war. Those rights are also reflected in the European convention on human rights and in the Human Rights Act 1998, which brought them back to this country and made them justiciable here. However, times change, and legal norms must be continuously reassessed against changing circumstances. The Government have always said that the 1998 Act was a first step on the journey towards a full articulation of fundamental rights and responsibilities for people in the United Kingdom.
	We are now about to launch a debate about how to go forward, focusing on the way in which our commitment to these fundamental rights and responsibilities can help to bind us together and how we can make their application more transparent and accessible to the public. In particular, we wish to explore how we can make more explicit the way in which these rights are mirrored by the duties that citizens owe to the state and to society and the underpinning concepts of proportionality, legitimacy and necessity in the way the Act is implemented. In considering how that might be done, we believe that one possibility would be the passing of a new Bill of Rights and Responsibilities. We will listen very carefully to what people say to us as we embark on the consultation process throughout the country, and we will use the information that we derive from that process to work out an appropriate way of achieving those goals.
	Of course, some, like my right hon. Friend, want to go further than that and to ensure that our constitution is fully codified. The campaign for such a written constitution has a long and distinguished history in this country, with many supporters on both sides of the House. Most countries have codified written and embedded constitutions; the United Kingdom does not, for all sorts of historical reasons. Instead, our constitution has four principal sources: statute law, common law, conventions and works of authority. Unlike other countries, since the end of the 17th century there has been no key event, war or revolution that has led to the need for one document setting out the rules that govern the political system and the rights of citizens and Government.

Keith Vaz: I am sorry to raise the point during this part of the Minister's speech, but I was interested in his decision to go around the country and meet groups. Does he have any format in mind for those meetings, and will the cities and towns he chooses have a particular profile? It is important that wherever he chooses to go is truly representative of the United Kingdom. Of course, we would love to see him in Leicester.

Michael Wills: My right hon. Friend is right to suggest that we should employ a variety of mechanisms; that is what we intend to do. I shall talk a little more in a moment about the British statement of values and how we intend to realise that.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. May I just say to the Minister that it is helpful if he speaks towards the microphone? Otherwise, those reporting our affairs have some difficulty.

Michael Wills: Of course, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and I will address my remarks to you as wellmy apologies.
	We shall use a wide variety of mechanisms, such as citizens juries, in which representative bodies of citizens come together to deliberate on particular issues. We intend to use online consultation widely so that people who cannot be part of the physical consultation process for whatever reason will be able to engage fully in debating these important issues. That will apply across the piece. We are consulting widely on the Constitutional Reform Bill, which concerns the surrendering and limiting of the Executive's powers. We will consult on the possibility of a new Bill of Rights and Duties, and consult widely on the British statement of values, to which I shall come in a moment.
	I would like to comment again on a point to which my right hon. Friend referred in his remarks. If we are to consider going down the route of a fully codified constitutionsomething that would be a radical departure from constitutional practice in this countryit is important that we do so on the basis of a settled consensus. That can be achieved only through extensive and wide consultation. If we do not do it on that basis, I fear that it would not be sustainable. It is important that when we embark upon constitutional change, particularly potentially radical change, we should approach it not as an engineer approaches a blueprint, but as a physician, healing what needs to be healed, but not going beyond that. We need to approach the matter with care and caution, but we must recognise that the issue is a live one, and one with which we must engage.
	Underpinning everything that we have talked about is our desire to find the things that bind us together as a nation. We have proposed, therefore, the development of a British statement of values. When I say we, I refer to the British people as a whole, not to this Government. The process that we are proposing, as the Prime Minister has made very clear, will not involve the Government

Eleanor Laing: indicated assent.

Michael Wills: Does the hon. Lady wish to make an intervention?

Eleanor Laing: rose

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I am afraid that interventions from the Opposition Front Bench are not permitted in these Adjournment debates. I am sure that the hon. Lady was not seeking to break the convention.

Michael Wills: Thank you Mr. Deputy Speaker. I would be happy to carry on the conversation with the hon. Lady after the debate.
	We have made it clear that decisions on whether there should be such a British statement of values, on the form it should take and on the uses to which it should be put, will be taken by a citizens summit. It will be a representative body of British people, probably selected randomly, but demographically representative of the country as a whole. They will deliberate on these questions and come to a decision, which will then be put to Parliament for the final say.
	That brings me to a very important point. In all the proposals that we have introduced that are embodied in the Green Paper, The Governance of Britain, our system of parliamentary, representative democracy will remain at the heart. My right hon. Friend asked what position Parliament would have in the process, and I can tell him that it will remain absolutely at the heart of it. For all the measures that are being consulted on, and all the measures of direct democracy, we are not proposing to replace our system of representative democracy or go towards in any way a plebiscitary democracy. We believe that our system of representative democracy is fair and effective and it will remain central to the process.
	We must recognise that the system of representative democracy, which has served the country well, may need to change for changed circumstances. The British people, their aspirations and political behaviour have changed and it is right and proper that our constitution should adapt to reflect that. It always has doneone of the great virtues of the British constitution has been its flexibility. In the 19th century, it went through enormous upheaval, with three great reforms of the suffrage, which were as radical as our current proposals.
	Whatever we do, we shall do it with great care to ensure that our system of parliamentary democracy remains central. We will use almost every method that we can to engage the British people.

Keith Vaz: It is fascinating to hear my hon. Friend's comments. Obviously, he must consult the British people first, but is there any particular country, which he has studied or from which he has received evidence or reports of its written constitution, to which he is attracted?

Michael Wills: Clearly, we are studying what has happened in other countries. However, we would not try to replicate other constitutional arrangements in this country because constitutions arise from the specific circumstances of each country. They are products of specific histories and societies. We believe that what we have in this country is specific and unique and we want to formulate our own proposaland we want the British people to be central in that processrather than importing practice. However, we have examined ways in which other countries try to engage their populations in constitutional change. For example, we have considered Australia and British Columbia, which conducted an interesting experiment with a citizens summit. In formulating the debate, we will learn from the custom and practice that other countries have adopted, but we need to work out ways in which to adapt specific constitutional mechanisms for ourselves as a people.
	My right hon. Friend asked where we would go in the country. I can safely say that we will look everywhere and that we are especially conscious of the importance of Leicester as a representative town. We shall seriously consider conducting at least one event nearby, if not in Leicester. I hope that that satisfies my right hon. Friend for the time being.
	We will be able to reveal much more detail in the coming months and I hope that there will be plenty of opportunity to debate those matters in the House. The process will not be short and many of our discussions will take place over not only months but years. We are starting that process and we want to engage parliamentarians in it. Today's debate is rather sparsely attendedI hope that we can get more of our colleagues to participate in future. The debates are important and will inevitably have an impact on the way in which Parliament works.

Keith Vaz: My hon. Friend has been generous in giving way. I note from the newspapers that he has decided to give up his ministerial car. I hope that his transport arrangements will enable him to travel around the country.

Michael Wills: I am grateful for the care with which my right hon. Friend follows press coverage of my movements. However, there will be no hindrance to getting around the country. The Lord Chancellor and I will travel around the country, probably by public transport more often than not.
	We will try our best to ensure that we reach everybody in this country who wants to participate in the debate. It is not always easy. We want to go beyond the usual voices that contribute to such discussions. We are trying to construct mechanisms to do that and I hope that my colleagues in the House today will participate in the process. We will invite all parliamentarians to join us in the debate. It is not the prerogative of one party, but something that should belong to every Member of the House and every citizen of the country. It is an important process and, if we can do it together on a non-partisan basis, we have a good chance of achieving a radical constitutional settlement, which will serve the country well for many years.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 Adjourned accordingly at one minute to Eight o'clock.